| 摘要 |
A computerized, interactive, graphical display system in which a database of technical documents, such as patents and patent publications developed from an on-line database search, may be represented as data objects in a virtual three-dimensional space. The data objects are grouped into a universe (64) of virtual galaxies by a number of user-selected common attributes. A user may identify terms or values of interest for each of the selected attributes in order to tailor the representation to the particular interests of the user. Each of the selected attributes is associated with a distinctive visual criteria for enabling the user to distinguish between the different attributes, and values identified for each attribute, in the display. The distinct visual criteria include varying the color (70), size (72) and layers (74) within the galaxies depending upon different values for the selected attributes, as well as clustering (76) the galaxies on the display by an additional common attribute. The user may navigate through the three-dimensional space to view the virtual galaxies, as well as penetrate particular galaxies of interest to view individual documents. As the user navigates into a galaxy, the galaxy is changed into a set of data objects that each represent an individual technical document. As the user approaches particular data objects, titles and images from the represented documents appear on the screen. An object may be selected on the display to view the text of the document. |
