U.S. patent application number 09/982270 was filed with the patent office on 2007-06-14 for method and apparatus for displaying 3-d state indicators.
Invention is credited to Anders Vinberg.
Application Number | 20070132760 09/982270 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 38179482 |
Filed Date | 2007-06-14 |
United States Patent
Application |
20070132760 |
Kind Code |
A9 |
Vinberg; Anders |
June 14, 2007 |
Method and apparatus for displaying 3-D state indicators
Abstract
A method for presenting a user selected status of an object in a
three dimensional graphic display is disclosed. The method includes
the step of receiving a request to select a property of an object
for display. The method further includes the step of displaying at
least one property which may be displayed for the object. A
selection of a property is received and the value of the selected
property for the object is determined. The method further includes
the step of generating a status indicator based on the value of the
selected property. The status indicator is then displayed relative
to the object. In a preferred embodiment, the form of the status
indicator is automatically determined by the system. An apparatus
for implementing the method is also disclosed.
Inventors: |
Vinberg; Anders; (Plandome
Manor, NY) |
Correspondence
Address: |
BAKER BOTTS L.L.P.
2001 ROSS AVENUE
SUITE 600
DALLAS
TX
75201-2980
US
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Prior
Publication: |
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Document Identifier |
Publication Date |
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US 20020138602 A1 |
September 26, 2002 |
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Family ID: |
38179482 |
Appl. No.: |
09/982270 |
Filed: |
October 17, 2001 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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09949101 |
Sep 7, 2001 |
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09982270 |
Oct 17, 2001 |
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09408213 |
Sep 27, 1999 |
6289380 |
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09949101 |
Sep 7, 2001 |
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08892919 |
Jul 15, 1997 |
5958012 |
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09408213 |
Sep 27, 1999 |
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60021980 |
Jul 18, 1996 |
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60241049 |
Oct 17, 2000 |
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60241051 |
Oct 17, 2000 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
345/440 ;
709/223 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04L 41/22 20130101;
G06T 11/206 20130101; H04L 41/046 20130101; G06F 3/04817 20130101;
G06F 3/04847 20130101; H04L 43/0817 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
345/440 ;
709/223 |
International
Class: |
G06T 11/20 20060101
G06T011/20; G06F 15/173 20060101 G06F015/173 |
Claims
1. A method for presenting a status of an object in a three
dimensional graphic display, comprising: determining a value of a
property associated with an object; determining a status indicator
associated with the property; generating a status indicator
representing the property associated with the object; and
displaying the status indicator relative to the object.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the status indicator has a
translucent quality.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the status indicator has a
reflective quality.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the status indicator is depicted
as a bar.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein at least one dimension of the bar
represents the value of the property.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the status indicator is depicted
as a quantitative indicator.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the quantitative indicator is a
gauge.
8. A method for presenting a user selected status of an object in a
three dimensional graphic display, comprising: receiving a request
to select a property of an object for display; displaying at least
one property which may be displayed for the object; receiving a
selection of a property; determining the value of the selected
property for the object; generating a status indicator based on the
value of the selected property; and displaying the status indicator
relative to the object.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of generating includes
automatically determining the form of the status indicator.
10. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving a selection
from the user determining the form of the status indicator.
11. The method of claim 8, wherein the form of the status indicator
is a bar graph.
12. An apparatus for presenting a status of an object in a three
dimensional graphic display, comprising: a processor; a memory
connected to said processor storing a program to control the
operation of said processor; the processor operative with the
program in the memory to: determine a value of a property
associated with an object; determine a status indicator associated
with the property; generate a status indicator representing the
property associated with the object; and display the status
indicator relative to the object.
13. An apparatus for presenting a user selected status of an object
in a three dimensional graphic display, comprising: a processor; a
memory connected to said processor storing a program to control the
operation of said processor; the processor operative with the
program in the memory to: receive a request to select a property of
an object for display; display at least one property which may be
displayed for the object; receive a selection of a property;
determine the value of the selected property for the object;
generate a status indicator based on the value of the selected
property; and display the status indicator relative to the
object.
14. An apparatus for presenting a status of an object in a three
dimensional graphic display, comprising: means for determining a
value of a property associated with an object; means for
determining a status indicator associated with the property; means
for generating a status indicator representing the property
associated with the object; and means for displaying the status
indicator relative to the object.
15. An apparatus for presenting a user selected status of an object
in a three dimensional graphic display, comprising: means for
receiving a request to select a property of an object for display;
means for displaying at least one property which may be displayed
for the object; means for receiving a selection of a property;
means for determining the value of the selected property for the
object; means for generating a status indicator based on the value
of the selected property; and means for displaying the status
indicator relative to the object.
16. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with processing
instructions for implementing a method for presenting a status of
an object in a three dimensional graphic display, the processing
instructions for directing a computer to perform the steps of:
determining a value of a property associated with an object;
determining a status indicator associated with the property;
generating a status indicator representing the property associated
with the object; and displaying the status indicator relative to
the object.
17. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with processing
instructions for implementing a method for presenting a user
selected status of an object in a three dimensional graphic
display, the processing instructions for directing a computer to
perform the steps of: receiving a request to select a property of
an object for display; displaying at least one property which may
be displayed for the object; receiving a selection of a property;
determining the value of the selected property for the object;
generating a status indicator based on the value of the selected
property; and displaying the status indicator relative to the
object.
Description
RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Ser.
Nos. 60/241,049 and 60/241,051 both filed Oct. 17, 2000. Further,
this application is a Continuation-In-Part of copending U.S. Ser.
No. 09/949,101 entitled "Network Management System Using Virtual
Reality Techniques to Display and Simulate Navigation to Network
Computers" filed Sep. 7, 2001. This application is further related
to co-pending U.S. Ser. No. 09/558,897 entitled "Method and
Apparatus for Predictively and Graphically Administering a
Networked Computer System in a Time Dimension" filed Apr. 26, 2000,
and U.S. Ser. No. 09/559,237 entitled "Method and Apparatus for
Maintaining Data Integrity Across Distributed Computer Systems"
filed Apr. 26, 2000. Each of the previously mentioned applications
is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. The
concurrently filed U.S. Non-Provisional Application entitled
"Method And Apparatus For Displaying 3D State Indicators" is also
incorporated herein by reference.
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0002] The present system is in the field of systems and articles
of manufacture to administer and analyze complex, heterogeneous
networked computer systems and other systems that can be monitored
by computer technology. More specifically, the present system is
directed to systems and articles for enabling user selection and
presentation of a property of an object in a three dimensional
graphic display.
BACKGROUND
[0003] In known system management applications, the visualization
of the contents, configuration, and state of the managed system is
usually based on some form of display, ranging from a list of
items, to icons arrayed in some meaningful way, to 2-D diagrams, to
3-D views. The type of each object may be indicated with an icon of
some sort, while the identity and/or state of the object is often
rendered in text form. Variations on these themes exist, such as
displays that are completely textual and those that use no text at
all, but common to all such systems is a core display that shows
the objects under management and their relationships.
[0004] Using 3-D visualization to render objects conveys a more
realistic view of managed objects and their configuration. However,
one problem with such a technique is that system management
applications typically only show 3-D images of the basic
description of the objects, such as their type and
inter-connectivity. Another problem is that common system
management applications only show fixed properties of the managed
objects.
[0005] To show the general state of the managed objects, which may
include values of their properties, such as state, load, error
rate, integrity, and available capacity, known systems typically
use some form of visualization appropriate to the metrics of
interest. For example, to show the status of the object, an
indicator of its essential health, ranging from NORMAL to CRITICAL
and also taking on values such as UNKNOWN, it is common to use
color, where green might indicate NORMAL, red might indicate
CRITICAL and gray or black indicate UNKNOWN.
[0006] In real-world displays, it is not practical to surface all
the information about the managed object in this core 3-D display.
Although some applications have attempted to do this by displaying
textual information on planes in 3-D, such displays are harder to
read than plain 2-D text because of the limited resolution of
current equipment and because current systems do not have enough
computational power to anti-alias text or other graphical elements
in real time. If this much information is desired, using a 2-D
visualization model is considered superior. The benefits of 3-D
views appear to be best gained by employing 3-D metaphors.
[0007] Some systems generate 3-D bar charts, usually standing on a
plane in a regular grid. However, these bar charts have many
problems. Most notably, the bars appear to be standing on a totally
abstract floor plane, not one that represents the real-world
objects interconnected through network links. In addition, such
general charting systems are based on collected statistics, and not
on real-time monitoring measurements coming out of a management
system.
[0008] In order to show the other very important and detailed
information about the managed objects in a practical way, it is
commonplace to provide some mechanism for "drilling down," thereby
retrieving more detailed information about the object from an
information store, using a conventional user interface. For
example, in network and systems management systems, it is common to
surface status in the core display but provide performance and load
indicators in other displays that may be brought up from the core
display.
[0009] Unfortunately, these arrangements have some disadvantages.
When additional information is brought up in secondary displays,
the secondary displays deviate from the normal navigation
conventions of the core 3-D display. In this situation, to see the
secondary data on various management objects, it is necessary to
first navigate to them, then bring up the secondary display, then
navigate to other objects and bring up their secondary displays.
Using such an interface is not only cumbersome, but it also impedes
a user's ability to compare properties of several objects at
once.
[0010] In addition, fixed arrangements of this type may not suit
every user. For example, while many users may be primarily
interested in status and consider load secondary, the person in
charge of managing load balancing across the network may be more
interested in instantaneous load displays.
[0011] Some system management applications provide for customizing
the display in two areas. The information displayed in conjunction
with the icon in typical displays may be selected from the
properties of the objects, so that the icon shows various pieces of
information in the form of text, color or other ways.
Alternatively, moving the mouse cursor over a symbol in the display
may bring up a configurable reticule with labeling, again
displaying different properties. This customization is often done
specific to each class of object, so different information is
displayed about a server and a router, for example. However, this
type of configuration is typically static, requiring the user to
enter some sort of configuration utility. No known system provides
a real time configuration of the display.
SUMMARY
[0012] In accordance with the disclosed system, a first method for
presenting a status of an object in a three dimensional graphic
display is disclosed. The method includes the step of determining a
value of a property associated with an object. The method further
includes the step of determining a status indicator associated with
the property. A status indicator is then generated representing the
property associated with the object, and displayed relative to the
associated object.
[0013] In accordance with the disclosed system, a second method for
presenting a user selected status of an object in a three
dimensional graphic display is disclosed. The method includes the
steps of receiving a request to select a property of an object for
display and displaying at least one property which may be displayed
for the object. The method further includes the step of receiving a
selection of a property. The value of the selected property for the
object is determined and a status indicator is generated based on
the value of the selected property. The status indicator is then
displayed relative to the object.
[0014] The objects, features and advantages of the disclosed method
and system are readily apparent from the following description of
the preferred embodiments when taken in connection with the
accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0015] For a more complete understanding of the present invention
and the advantages thereof, reference is now made to the following
description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in
which like reference numbers indicate like features and
wherein:
[0016] FIG. 1 illustrates a system according to a preferred
embodiment of the present system;
[0017] FIG. 2 illustrates a display of the representation of a
networked computer system or complex business operation according
to a preferred embodiment of the present system;
[0018] FIG. 3 illustrates a section of the display in FIG. 2 with
an additional information display according to a preferred
embodiment of the present system;
[0019] FIG. 4 illustrates a section of the display in FIG. 2 with
an additional information display and user interface according to a
preferred embodiment of the present system;
[0020] FIG. 5 illustrates a section of the additional information
display of FIG. 3 according to a preferred embodiment of the
present system; and
[0021] FIG. 6 illustrates a flow chart of a method according to a
preferred embodiment of the present system.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0022] The various components that comprise a preferred embodiment
of the disclosed network analysis system are shown in FIG. 1. The
system includes one or more of a visualization workstation 101, an
object repository 102, one or more management applications 103, and
one or more agents 104 on each such management application. The
visualization workstation 101 interacts primarily with the object
repository 102. It requests information from it, it sends commands
to it, and it gets notification of events such as status change or
object additions from it. The repository 102 in turn gets this
information form the various management subsystems 103, which are
fed by agents 104 on the managed systems. An important
architectural consideration of the present system is that in normal
operation, the visualization workstation 101 preferably interacts
with the object repository 102. This minimizes network traffic,
optimizes the performance of the rendering of the workstation, and
minimizes the interconnectivity between the visualization
workstation 101 and the multitude of management subsystems and
agents existing in practical networks.
[0023] Preferably, the management system is based on some type of
store, preferably the object repository 102, that holds the
description of the structure of the network. This can include the
momentary state, load, and performance of the network and the
systems. This store may or may not be persistent, it may be
populated with a manual process, or with an automatic discovery
utility.
[0024] According to a preferred embodiment of the present system,
as shown in FIG. 2, a management system outputs a display 202 of
the managed objects using 3-D models 204 of real-world objects,
configured in suitable positions over 3-D sections 208 of a 3-D
surface, and interconnected with at least one line 206 that shows a
network link, where optional links are shown as dots and dashed
lines. The status of each object 204 is indicated with a hovering
light 212, whose color indicates status from green through yellow,
orange and red. The status of network link 206 may be indicated by
coloring the link itself.
[0025] Turning to FIG. 3, a more detailed view of the display 202
in FIG. 2 is shown. As seen in FIG. 3, according to a preferred
embodiment of the present system the system generates additional
objects 302, such as a vertical bar, next to each representation
204 of a "real-world" object. The present system uses these
additional objects 302 to indicate in real time quantitative or
qualitative measures of the managed objects.
[0026] As seen in FIG. 4, an alternative preferred embodiment
includes an indicator section 302 that displays other indicators in
the core display 202. In this and other alternative preferred
embodiments of the disclosed system, the indicator section 302 can
include color, animation effects, icon choice, text, bar, line or
pie charts near the managed object, and others. The managed objects
204 have a set of properties, some numeric, some textual, and some
categorical. Current system management applications support
surfacing some fixed set of properties in the core display using
fixed indicators, but other properties must be brought up through
an explicit request, after which they are visualized using a
technique determined by the application.
[0027] To overcome these problems, the preferred embodiment of the
disclosed system provides an interface 304, preferably a property
selection control panel, that permits a user to select properties
the user desires to monitor in the indicator section 302 using
predetermined indicators. In other embodiments, the user may select
a type of indicator to be used from a menu of indicators, such as
for example bar graph, indicator light and pie chart.
[0028] A user can interact with interface 304 by point-and-click
operations after placing a cursor 306 over a box 308, or any
similar configuration or arrangement, in the interface 304. After
clicking on the box 308, the area chosen by the user is correlated
to a predetermined property to be displayed X.sub.n through
X.sub.n+m 310, where n and m are integers. In use, X.sub.n through
X.sub.n+m are textual representations of the available properties.
Thus, in the preferred embodiment of the disclosed system, the
indicators 310 are the actual textual names of the properties
chosen. Preferably, all properties, are visualized in a standard
way after being explicitly requested, so there is no need for
customization of the secondary displays.
[0029] In the preferred embodiment, after a user interacts with the
control panel 304, there is an immediate effect to the indicator
section 302 in the display 202, without requiring any complex
settings in a dialog box, a confirmation dialog, or even pressing
an OK button, which would break the flow of the operation and
distract the user from the information displayed.
[0030] Further, the property selection control panel 304 preferably
acts as an indicator of what information is currently displayed. In
the preferred embodiment, distinct indicators for the various types
of information are used through bars 312, preferably a
yellow-orange-red color range indicates status and shades of blue
indicate load. In this way, a knowledgeable user can immediately
tell, by looking at the control panel 304 in the display 202, what
information is currently displayed. In the preferred embodiment,
the control panel 304 shows the current indicators, such as colors
or animation effects, as well as the corresponding property,
identified by name. Providing both a textual description of the
properties and their corresponding visual displays in control panel
304 assists a novice user who may know the meanings of the various
visual displays employed by the system.
[0031] For example, as seen in FIG. 5, to indicate the real time
percentage load of a computer system, the additional object 302a
can be a solid bar 304 that reaches up to a corresponding
percentage within an empty, transparent bar. In some ways, this
resembles a conventional bar chart, with the percentage scale 306
on an x axis above the bar 304, but combined with a 3-D display 202
of real-world objects that are arranged in a way that represents
the real-world configuration of these managed objects.
[0032] According to a preferred embodiment of the present system,
indicator 302 is made translucent. This avoids making the
visualization 302 unreadable due to the large number of objects 204
and their quantitative indicators 302, such as the bars 304. The
effect is that of "colored water" reaching up to a certain level in
a "glass aquarium tank." The colored area that represents the
actual traffic load or performance is colored fairly solidly, just
translucent enough to indicate the distinction between this
quantitative measure and the real-world objects, and to prevent the
quantitative measures from obstructing the view of other objects.
The empty part of the tank, representing capacity of the system
that is currently not exploited, is almost entirely transparent,
rendered just opaque enough to give an impression of a glass
tank.
[0033] In addition, in alternative preferred embodiments of the
present system, the system uses other advanced visualization
techniques, such as reflections in the "glass surfaces" and the
"edges of the glass tank" to increase the perceived realism and
reduce the visual clutter between the managed objects 204 and the
quantitative indicators 302.
[0034] In FIG. 6, a preferred method 600 is shown. The method
starts at 602, after which a request is received to select a
property of an object to be displayed at 604. This request is
preferably initiated by a user indicating that the user wishes to
customize the display, for example by double-clicking on an object
or by right-clicking on an object and making a menu selection.
[0035] At step 606, the property selection control panel is
displayed. The control panel contains at least one property which
may be selected for display. A selection of a property from the
control panel is received at step 608. The value of the selected
property for the object is determined at 610. This determination is
preferably performed in real-time with reference to data contained
in object repository 102. A status indicator is generated based on
the determined value of the selected property at step 612, and the
status indicator is displayed at step 614.
[0036] Accordingly, it is to be understood that the drawings and
description in this disclosure are proffered to facilitate
comprehension of the system, and should not be construed to limit
the scope thereof It should be understood that various changes,
substitutions and alterations can be made without departing from
the spirit and scope of the system.
* * * * *