JPH01156871A - Display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To display a partial diagram formed based on an element that is really desired by a user in an easy-to-see form by retrieving elements related to a designated noticed element and the relation of these elements out of a memory means and deciding successively the arrangement of those information to be displayed on a screen. CONSTITUTION:A memory means 3 is used together with a noticed element designating means 6, a display screen production means 8, a display buffer 7, and a display device 9. Then a notion to be displayed and formed on the basis of the notion to be noticed is extracted out of a list of notions stored in the means 3 as well as related information among notions. The extracted notion is displayed at an optimum position. Thus a desired part is displayed in an easy-to-see form. Furthermore a coordinate input device 5 is used to change successively the desired notions with interactive inputs to the display screen. As a result, a partial diagram can be changed and therefore the load on a user is greatly reduced in case the user traces successively knowledge, to confirm them.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Objective of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a plurality of elements such as a large number of concepts in knowledge representation and each logic symbol in a logic circuit diagram, and relationships among them. The present invention relates to a display device that graphically displays images.

(Prior art) In the field of knowledge information processing, for example, as shown in Figure 9,
Knowledge is expressed as many concepts and relationships among them, stored in a computer, and used. In this case, it is necessary to check whether the knowledge stored in the computer is accurate or not, so a method is used in which the knowledge is displayed graphically so that the user can store it. However, even if an attempt is made to display the entire knowledge at once, there may be dozens of concepts and relationships between concepts, making the display very complex and difficult to understand. Therefore, as shown in Figure 10, for example, a graphic display device has a function that selectively displays only some closely related concepts of knowledge and a function that allows the user to accurately indicate the part he or she wants to see. It is desirable that

These functions are necessary not only for displaying knowledge expressed as a collection of concepts, but also for logical diagrams of electronic circuits composed of many gates.

The following methods have been conventionally used for a graphical display device or a general computer to partially display knowledge and indicate to the user the part he or she wants to see.

One method is to have the user input conditions for specifying the concept he/she wants to see as a character string, and then display information related to the corresponding concept. As a method for this purpose, a method for inputting properties is known.

These methods have the advantage that knowledge can be partially displayed in an easy-to-see manner. However, the former method is problematic in that it requires the user to assign appropriate names to a large number of elements and remember the names.

Furthermore, the latter method is problematic in that it requires the user to spend a considerable amount of time inputting precise conditions.

On the other hand, as a method different from these, there is a method in which, when a partial view is already displayed, the user is asked to specify the part he or she wants to see based on it. For example, as shown in Figure 13,
This is a method of selecting a partial view adjacent to the currently displayed partial view by specifying the up, down, left, and right directions. However, in this method, adjacent figures must be displayed so that the figures representing concepts and relationships between concepts are displayed consecutively. is not limited.

Yet another method, as shown in Figure 14, is to express closely related concepts together in a single drawing when displaying the whole picture, and when the user specifies one of the shapes, There is a way to display that part in more detail. This method is effective when concepts can originally be classified hierarchically into major categories, intermediate categories, and minor categories. However, in the case of general knowledge, it is rare to be able to neatly classify it hierarchically like this, and if you try to forcefully group several concepts together and represent them in a single figure, you will not be able to properly display the relationships between the concepts. It disappears.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) As described above, when displaying a system that has relationships between many elements, the conventional display device has the function of displaying an easy-to-see partial diagram and the part that the user wants to see. There is no other product that has the ability to specify both accurately and easily.

The present invention was made to solve these problems, and has a function of displaying an easy-to-read partial diagram of a system that shows the relationships between a large number of elements, and a function that allows the user to accurately and easily specify the part he or she wants to see. The purpose is to provide a display device that has both functions.

[Structure of the invention] (Means for solving problems) The present invention has focused elements and others related thereto.

That is, the storage means stores a list of elements and relationship information between the elements. coordinate input means for specifying a position on the display screen;
The device includes a target element changing unit that finds a new element based on the coordinate information specified by the coordinate input unit and the coordinate information stored in the display buffer, and moves the target point from the element to the new element.

The display screen creation means generates elements to be displayed centering around the element of interest and related elements to be displayed, based on the element designated by the element of interest designation means and the information stored in the storage means. Determine the arrangement of figures showing the relationship between

The display buffer stores coordinate information of the figure created by this display screen creation means.

The display device displays the coordinate information stored in this display buffer.

(Operation) According to the present invention, the relative position of each element is not determined in advance, but the display screen creation means centers around the designated element of interest and creates relationships between elements related to this and the relationships therebetween. Since the information to be displayed is searched from the storage means and the arrangement of the information to be displayed on the screen is determined each time, the elements that the user really wants to see and their relationships can be displayed on a given screen. Therefore, it is possible to create an optimal partial view that is easy to see.

Furthermore, in the present invention, the element of interest can be specified by interacting with a graphic displayed on the screen. That is, when a user specifies an arbitrary element or a figure indicating an arbitrary relationship in the inter-element relationship diagram displayed on the display device using the coordinate input means, the focused element changing means specifies the specified element using the coordinate input means. By knowing what has been specified from the coordinate information stored in the display buffer and the coordinate information stored in the display buffer, it is possible to find a new element and shift the point of interest to the new element.

Therefore, when the element of interest is changed in this way, the display screen creation means creates a display screen centered on this element of interest, so that the user can accurately and easily specify the part he or she wants to see. can.

(Example) Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a display device according to this embodiment, and FIG. 2 is an external view of the display device.

In these figures, 1 is a host computer serving as a database in which necessary knowledge is stored.

This knowledge from the host computer 1 is stored in the memory 3 in the display device control processor 2 as required. The keyboard 4 is an input means for performing necessary interactions such as specifying a concept of interest. The coordinate input device 5 is composed of, for example, a mouse or a joystick, and is used to move a cursor to an arbitrary position on a figure displayed on the display screen and input the coordinates of the position of the cursor as appropriate.

The information from these keyboard 4 and coordinate input device 5 is
It is given to the concept of interest designation section 6. This is what you do. When the concept of interest determined by the concept of interest designation unit 6 is designated, the display screen creation unit 8 selects the concept to be displayed centered on the concept of interest based on the information stored in the memory 3. Determine concepts and their relationships, and determine their placement on the screen. The arrangement determined by the display screen creation section 8 is stored in the display buffer 7 as coordinate information. The display buffer 8 is a buffer that stores the position, range, form, etc. of each concept to be displayed using coordinate information and the like. The graphic display 9 displays a partial conceptual diagram centered on the concept of interest based on the coordinate information stored in the display buffer 7, and also displays a cursor at a position specified by the coordinate human power device 5. indicate.

FIG. 3 shows the operation flow of the display device configured in this way.

First, this display device receives data representing knowledge that the user wants to confirm from the host computer 1, and stores information representing concepts and relationships between concepts in the memory 3 (step a). For example, if the knowledge shown in FIG. 9 is read from the host computer 1, the memory 3 contains a list of concepts with corresponding identification numbers as shown in FIG. 4, and a list of concepts shown in FIG. Information indicating the relationship between concept 1 and concept 2 is stored. Therefore, by referring to the contents of this memory 3, the entire logical meaning of the knowledge shown in FIG. 9 can be grasped.

Next, the display device displays a partial diagram of the system centered on the concept having the designated identification number (step b). There are two ways to specify this concept. One method is
One method is to use the keyboard 4 to directly specify the identification number of the concept that the user wants to focus on.Another method is to use the coordinate input device 5 to display the concept that the user wants to focus on in the conceptual diagram that is already displayed. This method specifies the concept of interest by inputting the coordinates of the location. At the initial stage, it is important to decide which concept to focus on when creating a partial diagram.
It is conceivable to have the user specify it using the keyboard 4 or to make an appropriate decision on the display device. It becomes possible.

FIG. 6 shows an example of the initial partial diagram display procedure. That is, first, the display screen of the graphic display 91 and the display buffer 7 are initialized (step 1g). Next, the accusation concept designating unit 6 generates a concept list (FIG. 3) in the memory 3 based on the identification number of the concept specified by the keyboard 4.
is searched to find the concept of interest (step h). The obtained concept of interest is given to the display screen creation section 8. The display screen creation unit 8 searches the relationship list (FIG. 4) in the memory 3, finds a concept whose identification number of concept 1 or concept 2 is equal to the specified identification number, and displays the related concepts and the information between them. Obtain the relationship (step i). In addition, the display screen creation unit 8 stores information regarding other concepts connected in a certain relationship to the specified concept in the concept list (FIG. 3) in the memory 3.
(step j). Further, the display screen creation unit 8 plans the optimal arrangement of the concepts and relationships between the concepts thus obtained on the screen, and writes this information into the display buffer 7 (step k). As a result, the display buffer 7 stores information such as the identification number of the concept to be displayed, the display form of the concept, and the center coordinates, as shown in FIG. The graphic display 9 outputs and displays a necessary partial diagram based on the display data stored in the display buffer 7 (step k).

Once the partial diagram has been created in the above steps, when coordinates are input using the display input device 5, the concept specified at that position is determined by the concept designator 6 (step d).

This procedure is detailed in FIG. That is, first of all,
8! The electronic designation unit 6 reads the position input using the coordinate input device 5 (step l). The pointer is placed on the first stored concept in the display buffer 7 (step m). Next, it is determined whether the position read by the coordinate input device 5 is included in the display area of the concept indicated by the pointer (step n, 0). If it is included in that concept, the identification number of the concept to which it refers is obtained (step p). 8! If it is not included in the concept, it is determined whether the currently indicated concept is the last concept in the display buffer 7 (step q); if it is the last concept, the user It is determined that the concept is not displayed at the specified position (step ``). If it is not the last concept, the pointer is moved to the concept next to the concept currently pointed to by the pointer in the display buffer 7 (step ``). S).Then, read the concept using the same procedure.If the concept is not found by this procedure,
A warning is issued to the user that ``invalid position specification was made'' (step e) in FIG. 3, and the system waits for input from the coordinate input device 5 again (step C). Furthermore, if a concept is found, it is set as the concept of interest, and a partial diagram is created again according to the procedure in the display screen creation section 8 described above.

In this manner, the display device according to the present embodiment extracts concepts to be displayed, centering on the concept of interest, from the list of concepts stored in the memory 3 and the relationship information between concepts, and displays them in an optimal manner. Since it is placed and displayed at the desired position, the part you want to see can be displayed in an easy-to-see manner. Furthermore, according to this device, the concept that one wants to see can be changed one after another by human interaction with the display screen using the coordinate input device 5, and the partial diagram can be changed accordingly, so that knowledge can be sequentially traced. This can significantly reduce the burden on the user when performing checks.

Note that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above. For example, in the above embodiment, only the case where knowledge is confirmed has been described, but it is also possible to add or add a function for the user to add or modify knowledge using a coordinate input device. Further, in the above embodiment, an arbitrary concept is specified from among the displayed plural concepts using the coordinate input device, but it is also possible to specify an arbitrary relation among the relations connecting the displayed plural concepts, and You may designate one of the concepts connected as the concept of interest.

At this time, if one of the two concepts connected to the specified relationship is not displayed on the screen, this specification allows you to specify the concept that is not currently displayed. Therefore, there is an advantage that a concept that is not displayed can be specified without having to memorize all the concept names.

Further, in the above embodiment, a concept in knowledge expression is used as an example of an element, but it goes without saying that the present invention is also applicable to a logic circuit diagram having a plurality of gates as elements.

[°Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, elements related to the specified element of interest and the relationships therebetween are retrieved from the storage means, and the present invention also According to
Since the user interacts with the display screen to create a display screen centered around the part they want to see, the user can accurately and sequentially specify the parts they want to see. .

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of a display device according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is an external perspective view of the display device, Fig. 3 is a flowchart showing the knowledge display operation of the display device, and Fig. 4 is the same. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a concept list stored in the memory of the display device; FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a related information list stored in the same memory; FIG.
7 is a flowchart showing the initial screen setting procedure in the same display device, FIG. 7 is a diagram showing storage information in the display buffer in the same display device, FIG. FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a form of expression of knowledge consisting of a large number of concepts and their relationships, and FIGS. 10 to 14 are diagrams for explaining conventional methods of displaying the same knowledge. 1...Host computer, 2...Display device control block Applicant: Kozo Iizuka, Director of the Agency of Industrial Science and TechnologyFigure 1Figure 3Figure 4Figure 5Figure 7Figure 6Figure 10Figure 11Figure 12Bottom Figure 14: Part adjacent to

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) A display device that graphically displays an element of interest, other elements related to it, and relationships between these elements, comprising a storage means for storing a list of elements and relationship information between the elements; A focused element specifying means for specifying an element, and an element to be displayed centered on the focused element and related to the focused element based on the element specified by the focused element specifying means and the information stored in the storage means. a display screen creation means for determining the arrangement of figures showing the relationship between the elements and the relationship between the elements; a display buffer for storing coordinate information of the figure created by the display screen creation means; and coordinate information stored in the display buffer. and a display device that displays the
and the element of interest designation means includes a coordinate input means for designating a position on the display screen of the display device, and coordinate information designated by the coordinate input means and coordinate information stored in the display buffer. Discover new elements,
A display device comprising: a focused element changing means for shifting a focused point from the element to a new element. (2) When the position specified by the coordinate input device indicates the position of a figure indicating an arbitrary element in the display buffer, the element of interest specifying means sets that element as the element of interest. A display device according to claim 1. (3) When the position specified by the coordinate input device is a figure indicating a relationship between arbitrary elements in the display buffer, and indicates the position of the figure near the edge of the display screen, the element of interest specifying means: 2. The display device according to claim 1, wherein elements that are not displayed and are connected in that relationship are elements of interest.