Systems and methodologies providing for collaboration by respective users of a plurality of computing appliances working concurrently on a common project having an associated display

摘要

A system and methodology for collaborating. A plurality of computing appliances for use by a respective plurality of users, provides a combined display presentation of collaboration responsive to input of annotations made by at least two of the users working simultaneously on a common project having an associated common display presentation comprising a base image display combined with a display of the annotations as made by the at least two of the users. The system is comprised of layer storage comprising a plurality of separate respective data layers, providing associatively mapped storage of respective user data wherein each said data layer is associated with a respective user. Each said data layer of storage stores respective user data that is used to generate a respective display of respective user annotations as input by the respective user, as made relative to a display presentation of the base image display. Display control logic provides individualized selective control of utilization of each said separate respective data layer, as selected layers that are utilized in generation of a combined display presentation. The display control logic provides generation of the combined display presentation showing the collaboration of the respective ones of the users responsive to utilizing the respective ones of the selected data layers. In one embodiment, the system is further comprised of communication apparatus providing voice (and/or video) communication between each of at least two of the plurality of users, during the providing of the respective combined display presentation to said each of said at least two of the plurality of users, and the input of annotations by the users.

主权项

1. A system for collaboration among a plurality of users, comprising:
a plurality of computing appliances, each of the computing appliances having a local display apparatus, and an input apparatus; display logic providing a local display presentation on each of the local display apparatus at an associated said computing appliance for at least two of the users, of a common project having an associated display initially comprised of a base image, the local display presentation comprising a combined display comprised of at least one of the base image and the base image combined with an image of selected annotations of the users working on the common project; input logic, permitting concurrent input of annotations by at least two of the users via respective said input apparatus that provides an output of associated annotation data having an associated, display image; non-transitory memory storage comprising a plurality of separate data layers of storage; memory mapping logic associating each said data layer with one said user, wherein the annotation data for each said user is stored in a respective said data layer that is associated with the user responsive to the memory mapping logic; display control logic, providing selection from the data layers of the selected annotations; and display generation logic providing generation of the combined display showing a display of the selected annotations.