Enhanced Thumbnail Generation for Overlapping Window Visibility

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Solution Overview

Problem

Conventional thumbnails fail to effectively represent hidden content layers and window arrangements, leading to reduced usability as they only scale visible content, obscuring underlying information and making it difficult to interpret overlapping windows.

Innovation Solution

A method and apparatus that generate enhanced thumbnails by creating a snapshot of a view containing multiple windows, scaling it, and applying visual enhancements such as transparency and colored borders based on window attributes to reveal hidden content and layer depth, allowing users to quickly understand the arrangement of windows and hidden layers.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Area of stationary object

If conventional thumbnail scaling is used to reduce image size, then the thumbnail size is reduced for efficient display, but hidden content layers and window arrangements become obscured and difficult to interpret

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvethumbnail sizeVSAvoidhidden content visibility

Core Design Contradiction:

Area of stationary objectVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The thumbnail generation process is segmented into multiple stages: capturing all content layers, scaling the composite image, and then enhancing specific regions. This segmentation allows hidden content to be preserved in the source data while still achieving size reduction through scaling, resolving the contradiction between compact display and information retention.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent applies local quality enhancement by selectively modifying specific regions of the thumbnail based on window attributes. Different windows receive different visual treatments (borders, transparency adjustments, highlights) to reveal hidden content in areas where it matters most, while maintaining overall thumbnail compactness.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

2Loss of information

If windows are scaled to form a thumbnail, then the thumbnail represents the overall screen layout, but window boundaries become merged and the arrangement is no longer clearly represented

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvewindow arrangement representationVSAvoidvisual enhancement processing

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The patent uses color changes and visual enhancements to differentiate window boundaries and layers in the thumbnail. By applying different colors, borders, and transparency levels to different windows based on their attributes, the system maintains clear boundary representation even after scaling, avoiding the merging problem while managing complexity through attribute-based processing.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #32Color changes

3Productivity

If only visible content is captured for the thumbnail, then the thumbnail generation is simple and fast, but underlying layers and hidden content remain completely obscured

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvethumbnail generation speedVSAvoidunderlying content visibility

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs preliminary action by capturing all content layers (including hidden ones) before the scaling process. This preliminary capture of complete content ensures that underlying layers are preserved in the thumbnail data structure, allowing subsequent enhancement steps to reveal hidden content without sacrificing generation speed, as the data is already captured in advance.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent changes parameters by using window attributes (such as transparency, z-order, and focus state) to control the visual enhancement applied to different windows in the thumbnail. This parameter-based approach allows selective revelation of hidden content based on importance, maintaining productivity by processing only relevant windows with enhanced visibility parameters.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentUS8913076B1Method and apparatus to improve the usability of thumbnails

Publication Date: 2014.12.16 ADOBE INC

AI summary

A method and apparatus to improve the usability of thumbnails. In an embodiment, a computer implemented method for creating a thumbnail comprises generating a snapshot representing at least a portion of a view containing a plurality of windows, where each window has a window attribute, scaling the snapshot to a reduced size to form a thumbnail, and enhancing a representation of each window represented in the thumbnail based upon the window attribute of each window in the plurality of windows.