Visualization and navigation of knowledge domains

Abstract

A system stores visual content, and displays the visual content on a display unit in an undistorted, overview projection. The system receives input from a user to focus on a topic in the undistorted, overview projection, and transforms the undistorted, overview projection into a focused display showing the topic selected by the user and content related to the topic selected by the user in a continuous sequence of increasingly distorted projections. In the focused display, the content that is not related to the topic selected by the user does not move on the focused display, and the content that is related to the topic selected by the user moves towards the topic selected by the user on the focused display.

1 . A system comprising:
 a computer processor and a computer storage device configured to:
 store visual content in the computer storage device; 
 display the visual content on a display unit in an undistorted, overview projection; 
 receive input from a user to focus on a topic in the undistorted, overview projection; and 
 transform the undistorted, overview projection into a focused display showing the topic selected by the user and content related to the topic selected by the user in a continuous sequence of increasingly distorted projections; 
 wherein content that is unrelated to the topic selected by the user becomes invisible at the end of the transformation irrespective of a location of the unrelated content on the undistorted, overview projection; and 
 wherein content that is related to the topic selected by the user moves towards the topic selected by the user on the focused display. 
   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the focused display comprises a decreased scaling factor with increased distance from the selected topic, thereby generating a fisheye view of the visual content. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein a downscaled view of visual content in the fisheye view serves as a hyperlink, and wherein the computer processor is configured to receive user input via the hyperlink and invoke a virtual camera movement toward the hyperlink. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the computer processor is configured to receive user input to switch from the focused display to the undistorted, overview projection. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 4 , wherein the user input comprises clicking on a background of the focused display. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the content that is not related to the topic selected user comprises a transparency value. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the computer processor is configured to display the undistorted, overview projection onto a plane and to camber the undistorted, overview projection into a hyperboloid, thereby forming the focused display. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the computer processor is configured to:
 determine a relation among displayed topics; and   fade out topics that are not related to the topic selected by the user during the transformation from the undistorted, overview projection to the focused display.   
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the content that is related to the topic selected by the user and the content that is not related to the topic selected by the user comprise one or more of a fading out, a reduction in size, an increase in distortion of unrelated topics during the transformation from the undistorted, overview projection to the focused display, a distance between pieces of visual content, and an overlap of visual content. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the undistorted, overview projection comprises a zoomable projection. 
     
     
         11 . A process comprising:
 storing visual content in a computer storage device;   displaying the visual content on a display unit in an undistorted, overview projection;   receiving input from a user to focus on a topic in the undistorted, overview projection; and   transforming the undistorted, overview projection into a focused display showing the topic selected by the user and content related to the topic selected by the user in a continuous sequence of increasingly distorted projections;   wherein content that is unrelated to the topic selected by the user becomes invisible at the end of the transformation irrespective of a location of the unrelated content on the undistorted, overview projection; and   wherein content that is related to the topic selected by the user moves towards the topic selected by the user on the focused display.   
     
     
         12 . The process of  claim 11 , wherein the focused display comprises a decreased scaling factor with increased distance from the selected topic, thereby generating a fisheye view of the visual content. 
     
     
         13 . The process of  claim 12 , wherein a downscaled view of visual content in the fisheye view serves as a hyperlink, and comprising receiving user input via the hyperlink and invoking a virtual camera movement toward the hyperlink. 
     
     
         14 . The process of  claim 11 , comprising receiving user input to switch from the focused display to the undistorted, overview projection. 
     
     
         15 . A non-transitory computer readable storage device comprising instructions that when executed by a processor execute a process comprising:
 storing visual content in a computer storage device;   displaying the visual content on a display unit in an undistorted, overview projection;   receiving input from a user to focus on a topic in the undistorted, overview projection; and   transforming the undistorted, overview projection into a focused display showing the topic selected by the user and content related to the topic selected by the user in a continuous sequence of increasingly distorted projections;   wherein content that is unrelated to the topic selected by the user becomes invisible at the end of the transformation irrespective of a location of the unrelated content on the undistorted, overview projection; and   wherein content that is related to the topic selected by the user moves towards the topic selected by the user on the focused display.   
     
     
         16 . The non-transitory computer readable storage device of  claim 15 , comprising instructions for:
 determining a relation among displayed topics; and   fading out topics that are not related to the topic selected by the user during the transforming from the undistorted, overview projection to the focused display.   
     
     
         17 . The non-transitory computer readable storage device of  claim 16 , comprising instructions for moving content that is related to the topic selected by the user towards the selected topic on the focused display such that at a commencement of the transforming, movement of the content that is related to the topic selected by the user obeys a cambering hyperboloid projection, and in a course of the transforming, paths of the content that is related to the topic selected by the user are increasingly decoupled from the projected plane.