Occlusion reduction and magnification for multidimensional data presentations

A system for generating a presentation of a region-of-interest in an original image for display on a display screen, the original image being a collection of polygons having polygons defined by three or more shared edges joined at vertex points, the system comprising:

• a processor coupled to memory, the display screen, and an input device and adapted to:
• establish a lens for the region-of-interest, the lens having a magnified focal region for the region-of-interest at least partially surrounded by a shoulder region across which the magnification decreases, the focal and shoulder regions having respective perimeters;
• subdivide polygons in the collection of polygons proximate to at least one of the perimeters, as projected with the polygons onto a base plane, by inserting one or more additional vertex points and additional edges into the polygons to be subdivided;
• and,
• apply the lens to the original image to produce the presentation by displacing the vertex points onto the lens and perspectively projecting the displacing onto a view plane in a direction aligned with a viewpoint for the region-of-interest.

A computer program product having a computer readable medium tangibly embodying computer executable code for directing a data processing system to generate a presentation of a region-of-interest in an original image for display on a display screen, the original image being a collection of polygons having polygons defined by three or more shared edges joined at vertex points, the computer program product comprising:

• code for establishing a lens for the region-of-interest, the lens having a magnified focal region for the region-of-interest at least partially surrounded by a shoulder region across which the magnification decreases, the focal and shoulder regions having respective perimeters;
• code for subdividing polygons in the collection of polygons proximate to at least one of the perimeters, as projected with the polygons onto a base plane, by inserting one or more additional vertex points and additional edges into the polygons to be subdivided;
• and,
• code for applying the lens to the original image to produce the presentation by displacing the vertex points onto the lens and perspectively projecting the displacing onto a view plane in a direction aligned with a viewpoint for the region-of-interest.

An article having a computer readable modulated carrier signal medium being usable over a network, the computer readable modulated carrier signal medium having embedded means for directing a data processing system to generate a presentation of a region-of-interest in an original image for display on a display screen, the original image being a collection of polygons having polygons defined by three or more shared edges joined at vertex points, the article comprising:

• means in the medium for establishing a lens for the region-of-interest, the lens having a magnified focal region for the region-of-interest at least partially surrounded by a shoulder region across which the magnification decreases, the focal and shoulder regions having respective perimeters;
• means in the medium for subdividing polygons in the collection of polygons proximate to at least one of the perimeters, as projected with the polygons onto a base plane, by inserting one or more additional vertex points and additional edges into the polygons to be subdivided;
• and,
• means in the medium for applying the lens to the original image to produce the presentation by displacing the vertex points onto the lens and perspectively projecting the displacing onto a view plane in a direction aligned with a viewpoint for the region-of-interest.

A method in a computer system for generating a presentation of an object-of-interest in an original image for display on a display screen, the original image being a collection of objects, the object-of-interest being one object in the collection, the method comprising:

• establishing a viewpoint for the object-of-interest;
• establishing a path through the original image between the viewpoint and the object-of-interest;
• extruding points on the object-of-interest along the path toward the viewpoint to define a volume for determining minimum displacements from the path for objects intersected by the volume;
• and,
• displacing one or more of the objects away from the path according to a transformation function and the minimum displacements to locations within the original image where substantially all of the objects displaced remain visible and do not occlude the object-of-interest when viewed from the viewpoint.