US 4,613,946 AGranted

Method and apparatus for generating hierarchical displays

OwnerErnest H. Formaninventor

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Abstract

Method and apparatus are described for drawing tree structures on output displays and on printed output reports. The tree structures include complete illustration of nodes and branches connecting the same, and further provides display or printing of data associated with the various nodes. The central node of the tree may be arbitrarily selected by redrawing the structure to focus on the root node of the tree or on the arbitrarily selected central node. For economic use of display space, a skeletal display may be provided in which only the nodes descendent from the central node of interest are shown with the associated data, the remaining nodes being displayed in skeletal format only. The tree structure may be applied to a descision making algorithm, and may be used to provide a number of alternatives useful for attaining a desired goal, and for evaluating the various alternatives.

Claims26

Dependent claims

A method for displaying information in a tree structure on a system having an input means, a display means and a control means comprising the steps of:

(a) providing from said input means to said control means input data representative of information associated with a root of the tree structure forming a 0.sup.th node level therein;
(b) providing from said input means to said control means input data representative of nodes on a K.sup.th level in the tree structure where K is an integer;
(c) receiving input data from said input means representative of a relationship between said nodes on said K.sup.th level and nodes related thereto on a different level K+L where L is a nonzero integer;
(d) repeating steps (b) and (c) until information concerning all nodes for display on the K.sup.th level has been provided to said control means;
(e) operating said control means to generate control data for controlling said display means to display the nodes of said K.sup.th level and to display connections representing branches of said tree structure between said nodes and the nodes related thereto on said different level whereby any displayed node is displayed together with its related nodes;
(f) repeating steps (b) through (e) as necessary for successive values of K to represent a tree structure on said display means;
and
(g) displaying said nodes of said tree levels and said branch connections between said nodes and said related nodes,
whereby a tree structure format is provided for displaying said input data.

6 more elements

A method for displaying a decision making algorithm on a computer activated display having an input means, a processing means and a display means, comprising the steps of:

(a) providing input data from said input means to said processing means representative of a target goal to be attained;
(b) providing input data from said input means to said processing means representative of factors significant in attaining the target;
(c) providing input data from said input means to said processing means representative of pairwise comparison of significance of each of the factors in attaining the target;
(d) assigning to each of said factors a numerical value based on pairwise comparisons of the significance thereof in accordance with a computation performed on the results of said pairwise comparisons;
(e) providing input data from said input means to said processing means representative of subfactors significant in each of said factors;
(f) for each factor, providing input data from said input means to said processing means representative of results of pairwise comparisons of significance of each of the subfactors for said factor;
(g) assigning to each of said subfactors a numerical value representative of a local significance thereof to an antecedent factor thereof to which it is significant in accordance with a computation performed on the results of said pairwise comparisons;
(h) repeating steps (e), (f) and (g) for sub-subfactors of said subfactors until all factors and subfactors of interest are accounted for;
(i) displaying on said display means a tree structure including a root, a plurality of nodes and branches connecting said nodes representing said target, factors, subfactors, subsubfactors and the like, and descendency relations between nodes on different levels, respectively.

6 more elements

In a method for executing on a programmed computer a process for selecting among a plurality of alternatives to achieve a desired goal, including performing pairwise comparisons among a plurality of criteria to obtain weighting factors for each of said criteria and, for each criterion, performing pairwise comparisons among said plural alternatives to obtain numerical values associated with each of said alternatives, and, based on said comparisons for each criterion, selecting an alternative having the highest numerical value, the improvement comprising:

a method for generating an output report including the steps of
(a) generating a node grouping having a plurality of nodes and branches arranged in a tree structure including a root node, corresponding to the desired goal, connected by a branching arrangement to at least one descendent node thereof corresponding to one of said criteria, the tree structure including a plurality of peer, antecedent and descendent relationships defined by the branching arrangement among the various nodes thereof,
(b) selecting a particular node as a central node for the report,
(c) providing complete data in association with said selected central node,
(d) providing complete data in association with descendent nodes of said selected central node,
(e) providing skeletal data, less than the complete data of said selected central node and said descendent nodes thereof in association with other nodes of the tree structure, and
(f) generating said output report to display a subset of said nodes and said branching arrangement of said tree structure, and to display complete data in association with said central node and said descendent nodes thereof and skeletal data in association with the other nodes of said tree structure,
whereby the report is generated with a tree structure in a skeletal form.

5 more elements

Apparatus for displaying information in a tree structure comprising an input means, a display means, and a control means connected to said input means and to said display means, said control means being programmed:

(a) for providing input data from said input means to said control means representative of information associated with a root of the tree structure forming a 0.sup.th node level therein;
(b) for providing input data from said input means to said control means representative of nodes on a K.sup.th level in the tree structure;
(c) for receiving input data from said input means representative of a relationship between said nodes on said K.sup.th level and related nodes thereto on different levels K+L where L is a nonzero integer;
(d) for repeating steps (b) and (c) until information concerning all nodes for display on the K.sup.th level has been provided to said control means;
(e) for operating said control means to generate control data for controlling said display means to display the nodes of said K.sup.th level and to display connections representing branches of said tree structure between said nodes and the related nodes thereof on said different levels;
and
(f) for displaying said nodes of said K.sup.th level and connections between said nodes and said related nodes.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.