JP2007133629A - Method of displaying database information - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method of displaying database information allowing narrow-down retrieval operation and input operation of a retrieval key of target information without changing over a three-dimensional virtual space screen, to the information inside a database displayed inside a three-dimensional virtual space. <P>SOLUTION: The method includes: a first step of generating a three-dimensional object having a window in each category of the information about the information stored in the database; a second step of disposing and displaying the generated three-dimensional object inside the three-dimensional virtual space screen of a display screen; and a third step of awaiting designation operation to the window of the displayed three-dimensional object, retrieving information belonging to the same category as the category of the three-dimensional object performed with the designation operation from the database, and displaying the three-dimensional object related to the information of a retrieval result thereof inside the three-dimensional virtual space screen of the display screen. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a method for displaying database information that can display information stored in a database as a three-dimensional object classified by category in a three-dimensional virtual space and facilitate the search of the information stored in the database. is there.

  With the development of database technology, the demand for accumulating and utilizing large amounts of information in various industries has increased. In addition, a search service is indispensable in order to obtain information desired by a user from a large amount of information existing on the Web, and a vendor that performs the search service stores information in a database as a cache.

Conventionally, when referring to a large amount of data stored in a database, there is a method of displaying information on a display in a tabular format, but with this method it is difficult to display all information on the screen, making it easy to search I can't do it.
As a data display method, there is a method in which one piece of information is expressed as one three-dimensional object and arranged in a three-dimensional virtual space.

As a known technical document in a method of arranging and expressing a three-dimensional object in a three-dimensional virtual space, there is Patent Document 1 below.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-312392

In the method disclosed in Patent Document 1, information stored in a database is arranged in a three-dimensional virtual space so that the correlation between each information and the attribute value of each data object can be visually confirmed. There is an advantage that it is easy to understand.
However, in this method, when searching for target information, it is necessary to switch the display screen from a three-dimensional object display screen to a character string input screen for inputting a search key.
For this reason, there is an inconvenience that it is necessary to go back and forth between the screen displaying the three-dimensional virtual space and the screen for performing the search, for example, when the search result is further refined after the search is performed once. Has occurred.

  An object of the present invention is to perform a search key input operation and a narrow search operation for target information without switching the 3D virtual space screen for information in a database displayed in the 3D virtual space. An object of the present invention is to provide a method for displaying database information.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a first step of generating a three-dimensional object having a window for each category of the information stored in a database, and displaying the generated three-dimensional object on a display screen. The second step of arranging and displaying in the three-dimensional virtual space screen, and waiting for a designation operation on the window of the displayed three-dimensional object, and information belonging to the same category as the category of the designated three-dimensional object A third step of searching from a database and displaying a three-dimensional object related to information of the search result in a three-dimensional virtual space screen of the display screen.

The present invention has the following effects.
It is possible to perform a search in the 3D virtual space screen for the information in the database displayed in the 3D virtual space, and to perform a narrow search for the search result in the same 3D virtual space screen. .

Hereinafter, an embodiment of a system to which a database information display method to which the present invention is applied is applied will be described.
FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram showing an example of an embodiment of the present invention. This system includes a server 102 having a database 101 and a client device 103 for performing data retrieval, acquisition, and display from the server 102. It is composed of
The client device 103 includes a display device 104 that displays on a display, an input device 105 such as a mouse and a keyboard, a control unit 106, an external storage device 108 that stores a resource information file 107, and a communication control unit 110 that controls communication over a network 109. It is composed of
The control unit 106 inside the client device 103 includes a reception unit 106a that transmits and receives data from the communication control unit 110, a transmission unit 106f, a resource information file acquisition unit 106c that acquires the resource information file 107 from the external storage device 108, and a screen. A search condition setting unit 106d that sets a search condition from an input performed on the input, a query data acquisition unit 106b that acquires a search result from the server 102, and a search result display unit 106e that displays the result on the display device 104 are configured.

Data stored in the database 101 in the server 102 is not particularly limited, but it is assumed that a historical person 111 and its work data 112 are stored as an example of this embodiment.
Each data is stored together with actual data 113, display data 114, related data 115, and the like.
The display data 114 stores image data of persons and works, and the related data 115 stores data for examining related items such as school and style.
As shown in the table 200a of FIG. 2, the data structure of the person data includes elements such as a person name 201, active countries 202, a style 203, a representative work 204, a school 205, and data (work image data) 206.
The personal name 201 is a primary key in the table 200a, and is also an object name when displayed as a three-dimensional object in a three-dimensional virtual space screen described later. The data 206 is associated with the work data table 200b.
In the work data table 200b, the creation year, the author, the style, the work image data, and the like of the work are stored as in the person data table 200a.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a screen for displaying data in the client device 103.
The screen 301 includes a data detail display unit 302, a three-dimensional space display unit 303, and a viewpoint movement operation unit 304.
The data detail display unit 302 displays the name, active country, style, representative work, school, and image data shown in FIG. 2 in a table format. In the initial state, it is displayed as a blank, and when a three-dimensional object is selected by clicking the mouse on the three-dimensional virtual space display unit 303, detailed person data corresponding to the three-dimensional object is displayed.
In the three-dimensional space display unit 303, the person data acquired from the database 101 is displayed on the three-dimensional virtual space screen as an object having a three-dimensional shape generated based on the information of the resource information file 107, and the user can display the screen. It has a function to accept operation input such as clicking on the top.
A viewpoint movement operation unit 304 moves the viewpoint on the three-dimensional space screen. In the viewpoint movement operation unit 304, there are a camera movement button for changing a displayed range and a three-dimensional object visible in the screen, and a “return” button for returning to the previously displayed screen space.

A method for projecting a three-dimensional object in the three-dimensional space display unit 303 is shown in FIG.
When displaying the three-dimensional object on the display device screen, the field of view visible from the viewpoint 401 is set, but the range visible from the viewpoint 401 on the front side of the projection plane 403 is set at the position of the front plane 404, and the depth direction The range that can be seen is set at the position of the rear plane 405. In the embodiment according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 4, the positions of the projection plane 403 and the rear plane 405 (positions in the Z-axis direction in the world coordinate system) D1, D2 are set with respect to the viewpoint position 401, A three-dimensional object defined in the local coordinate system is perspective-transformed into a two-dimensional projection image of the projection plane coordinate system on the world coordinate system and displayed on the projection plane 403. A quadrangular pyramid-shaped three-dimensional space between the front plane 404 and the rear plane 405 is the view value of the three-dimensional object.

A display example of the three-dimensional space display unit 303 is shown in FIG.
In the present embodiment, data is generated from the database 101 as a three-dimensional object 501 for each case and arranged on the three-dimensional space 502. The arrangement method at this time is assumed to be arranged in the space in the order of generation.
The uniform arrangement refers to expansion within the display effective range of the three-dimensional virtual space so that the intervals between the three-dimensional objects are equal to each other in the X-axis direction, the Y-axis direction, and the Z-axis direction.
At this time, all the data in the database 101 is displayed in the virtual space, the space becomes complicated, and the load of display processing increases. After that, let us focus on the three-dimensional object whose personal name is “Michelangelo” among the three-dimensional objects displayed in the space.

FIG. 6 shows a screen in which the camera viewpoint is moved close to the object.
The window of the three-dimensional object of “Michelangelo” is provided with a window 601 and “Style: Renaissance” is displayed. This window 601 is a window indicating a “style” category. When the window 601 is clicked with a mouse, only the 3D object whose “style” is “Renaissance” is searched and the contents of the 3D space are updated. ing. The three-dimensional object also has windows such as “active country” and “school”, and a search target column can be selected by the window.
In the window 601, the column to be searched in the tables 200 a and 200 b in FIG. 2 is automatically set as “window” from the three-dimensional shape acquired from the resource information. The solid shape, window shape, and arrangement are all stored in the resource information file 107, and the resource information acquisition unit 106c associates the window and the column name.

  The space after the search is as shown in FIG. In this case, only the items 701 whose “style” is “Renaissance” are displayed. In this state, further refinement search can be realized by selecting the “active countries” and “style” windows.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a process for performing space movement by mouse click.
When the mouse click event is notified from the OS to the control unit 106, the control unit 106 compares the position information on the position where the window is clicked with the projection plane 403 in the three-dimensional virtual space, and determines which position on the projection plane 403 It is checked whether the three-dimensional object is clicked (step 801). The drawing state of the projection plane 403 is checked, and if there is no drawing of a three-dimensional object at the mouse cursor position, the process ends (step 802).

If it exists, the object that is present on the most viewpoint side among the drawn three-dimensional objects is set as the determination target, and it is checked whether the three-dimensional object overlaps the mouse cursor (step 803).
When the mouse cursor overlaps with the three-dimensional object, it is determined at which position of the three-dimensional object. If there is a category window on the viewpoint side (displayed side) of the three-dimensional object and the mouse cursor exists within the range of the window, the same category narrowing search is performed for the data associated with the object (step 804).

  After the search, information on the same category space currently displayed is saved in the external storage device 108 for saving the history of space movement (step 805). Thereafter, the three-dimensional objects in the same category space are rearranged evenly in the screen by the same method as that at the time of generation, and the objects that do not correspond to the search are not displayed (step 806), and the process ends.

  On the other hand, when the mouse cursor position is within the range of the 3D object but outside the range of the category window, it is considered that the 3D object is selected instead of the category window, and the detail display unit 302 The data associated with the object is displayed (step 807).

1 is a system configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. It is a block diagram of the data stored in the database. It is explanatory drawing showing the display screen of embodiment of this invention. It is explanatory drawing of the method of displaying an object in three-dimensional virtual space. It is explanatory drawing of the specific example which displayed data three-dimensional space. It is explanatory drawing which shows the specific example of the state of an object and a category window. It is explanatory drawing which shows the specific example of the space after narrowing search. It is a flowchart of a narrowing search and display process.

Explanation of symbols

101 Database 102 Server 103 Client Device 104 Display Device 105 Input Device 106 Control Unit 107 Resource Information File 108 External Storage Device 109 Network 110 Communication Control Unit 501 Three-dimensional Object 601 Window

Claims (1)

  For each piece of information stored in the database, a first step of generating a three-dimensional object having a window for each category of the information, and the generated three-dimensional object are arranged and displayed in the three-dimensional virtual space screen of the display screen The second step is to wait for a designation operation on the window of the displayed three-dimensional object, and the information belonging to the same category as the category of the designated three-dimensional object is retrieved from the database, and 3 relating to the information of the retrieval result And a third step of displaying a three-dimensional object in a three-dimensional virtual space screen of the display screen.

Images