Interactive techniques for organizing and retrieving thumbnails and notes on large displays

A computer aided interactive method for organizing a plurality of objects including files, notes, photographs, music files, and other media collections displayed on a large screen, wherein the plurality of objects are displayed in a group of foreground objects and a group of background objects comprising the steps of:

• (a) selecting one or more objects in the ‘foreground’;
• (b) visualizing one or more foreground objects through brushing;
• (c) computer assisted moving of two or more foreground objects by target snapping, wherein target snapping applies arrows of the same color to objects sharing a common property, wherein a common property includes meta data of object, storage location of object, response to a predetermined attribute inquiry and response to a user attribute inquiry, wherein the arrow on each of the objects points to other objects sharing the common property;
• (d) calculating a relevance score for one or more objects in the plurality of objects;
• (e) calculating an aggregate information for the plurality of ‘groups’ based on the plurality of relevance scores;
• (f) retrieving one or more objects in the ‘foreground’ into the ‘background’ and one or more objects in the ‘background’ into the ‘foreground’ based on one or both the relevance score of the objects and the ‘groups’ aggregate information;
• and
• (g) repeating steps (b) to (f) until one or more criteria is met.

A computer aided interactive method for organizing a plurality of objects including files, notes, photographs, music files, and other media collections displayed on a screen, wherein the objects are organized in a three dimensional ‘X-Y-Z’ representation and the screen display is equivalent to a ‘X-Y-plane’ of an uppermost ‘Z-direction’, comprising the steps of:

• (a) computer brushing of one or more objects in the ‘X-Y-plane’ of the uppermost ‘Z-direction’;
• (b) user moving of one or more objects in the ‘X-Y-plane’ of the uppermost ‘Z-direction’;
• (c) retrieving of one or more objects in the ‘Z-direction’ to the uppermost ‘Z-direction’ based on a common property of the objects;
• (d) repeating steps (a) to (c) until one or more criteria is met;
• and wherein ster (b) involves computer assisted moving of two or more objects by target snapping, wherein target snapping applies arrows of the same color to objects sharing a common property,
• wherein the arrow on each of the objects points to other objects sharing the common property.

A system for organizing a plurality of objects including files, notes, photographs, music files, and other media collections displayed on a large screen, wherein the plurality of objects is displayed in a group of foreground objects and a group of background objects comprising the steps of:

• (a) means for visualizing one or more foreground objects through brushing, wherein brushing involves placing at least one decoration on at least two objects based on a common property of two or more foreground objects, wherein a common property includes meta data of object, storage location of object, response to a predetermined attribute inquiry and response to a user attribute inquiry, wherein the decoration is one or both of an arrow that points to other objects sharing the common property and a colored border;
• (b) means for moving one or more foreground objects;
• (c) means for calculating a relevance score for one or more objects in the plurality of objects;
• (d) means for calculating an aggregate information for the plurality of ‘groups’ based on the plurality of relevance scores;
• (e) means for retrieving one or more objects in the ‘foreground’ into the ‘background’ and one or more objects in the ‘background’ into the ‘foreground’ based on one or both the relevance score of the objects and the ‘groups’ aggregate information;
• and
• (f) repeating steps (a) to (e) until one or more criteria is met.

A computer storage medium having instructions stored thereon to cause a system to:

• (a) visualize one or more foreground objects through brushing;
• (b) move one or more foreground objects by target snapping, wherein target snapping applies borders of the same color to objects sharing a common property, wherein a common property includes meta data of object, storage location of object, response to a predetermined attribute inquiry and response to a user attribute inquiry;
• (c) calculate a relevance score for one or more objects in the plurality of objects;
• (d) calculate an aggregate information for the plurality of ‘groups’ based on the plurality of relevance scores;
• (e) retrieve one or more objects in the ‘foreground’ into the ‘background’ and one or more objects in the ‘background’ into the ‘foreground’ based on one or both the relevance score of the objects and the ‘groups’ aggregate information;
• and
• (f) repeat steps (a) to (e) until one or more criteria is met.