Dynamic montage viewer

Method for displaying a set of images and synchronizable movies all of which are different views of the same object or space on a graphics display device, said method comprising the following steps:

• a. associating with each image or movie frame the relative coordinates for projection purposes in three space of each of the vertices of the polygon created by the intersection of
• 1) a plane passing through the point which is the center of focus of the image and perpendicular to a line from the camera which took the image to this point and
• 2) the planes which define the field of view of the camera;
• b. associating with the screen of the graphics display device the relative equation of a plane in three space to use for projection purposes;
• c. associating with the operator a point in three space which represents the eye of the operator for projection purposes;
• d. monitoring a clock and continuously determining which subset of images (which can be frames of movies) should appear given the starting times of the movies and the current time of the clock;
• e. sorting the images in the current subset by distance between the 3-space point associated with the operator's eye and the centers of the 3-space polygons associated with the images and maintaining that sorted order by resorting if the operator's eye changes position;
• f. projecting each image and movie frame in the current subset in reverse order by
• 1) calculating the points of intersection of
• a.) lines drawn between the vertices of the polygon associated with the image and the point which represents the eye, and
• b.) the view plane
• 2) mapping the image to the resulting two-dimensional polygon in the viewport
• thereby drawing a perspective transformation of the image on the screen and by redoing this whenever there is a change in the subset of images which should be shown or a change in the sorted order of this active ordered subset.