JPH0547864B2 - - Google Patents

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 FIG. 9, knowledge is expressed as a number of 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 the entire knowledge is to be displayed at once, there may be thousands of concepts and relationships between concepts, making the display very complex and difficult to understand. Therefore, as shown in Figure 10, for example, a graphical 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 is a conventional method used by a graphic display device or a general computer to partially display knowledge and instruct the user to view a portion of the knowledge.

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. Examples of this method include naming each element and having the user enter the name of the element they want to see, as shown in Figure 11, or inputting the properties of the element they want to see, as shown in Figure 12. There are known methods for inputting information.
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 FIG. 13, there is a method of selecting a partial view adjacent to the currently displayed partial view by specifying the vertical and horizontal 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 that it can be neatly categorized hierarchically like this, and if you try to forcefully group several concepts together and represent them in a single figure,
Relationships between concepts cannot be clearly displayed.

(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 the Problems) The present invention provides a display in a knowledge representation that graphically displays an element related to a focused knowledge representation, other elements related thereto, and a connection relationship between these elements. In the apparatus, a storage means for storing a list indicating the elements and relationship information indicating a connection relationship between the elements; a focused element specifying means for specifying the focused element;
Based on the element specified by the element of interest specifying means, the relational information stored in the storage means is searched each time to determine the elements to be displayed related to the element of interest and the relationships between these elements. a display screen creation means that obtains relational information to be displayed and determines the arrangement of the plurality of elements based on the search results; a display buffer that stores coordinate information of the elements created by the display screen creation means; a display device that displays coordinate information stored in a display buffer, and the element of interest designation means includes a coordinate input device that designates a position on the display screen of the display device; When a position on the top is specified, a new element is found based on the coordinate information of the position and the coordinate information stored in the display buffer, and the element of interest is changed from the element to the new element. It is characterized by the fact that

(Function) According to the present invention, the relative position of each element is not determined in advance, but the display screen creation means centers around a designated element of interest and determines the relationship between elements related to this and the relationship between them. is searched from the storage means and the arrangement of the information to be displayed on the screen is determined each time, so the elements that the user really wants to see and the relationships between them can be displayed on a given screen. It is possible to freely arrange the parts on the top, and 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. In other words, a figure showing any element or any relationship in the inter-element relationship diagram displayed on the display device,
When the user specifies it using the coordinate input means, the focused element changing means learns what has been specified from the coordinate information specified by the coordinate input means and the coordinate information stored in the display buffer. You can find elements and shift your focus to new elements. Therefore, when the element of interest is changed in this way, the display screen creation means reorganizes the display screen centering on this element of interest, so that the relationship diagram centered on the newly designated element of interest also changes. It becomes easier to see. In this way, according to the present invention, the display screen is created centered around the part the user wants to see while interacting with the display screen, so the user can accurately and easily see the part he or she wants to see. Can be specified.

(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 necessary. Keyboard 4 allows you to specify the concept to focus on, etc.
It is an input means for performing the necessary dialogue. The coordinate input device 5 is composed of, for example, a mouse or a joy stick, 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 where the cursor is present as appropriate.
Information from the keyboard 4 and coordinate input device 5 is given to a concept of interest designation section 6. The concept-of-interest specifying section 6 determines what the concept of interest is based on information from the keyboard 4, coordinate input device 5, memory 3, and display buffer 7, which will be described later. When the concept of interest determined by the concept of interest designation unit 6 is specified, the display screen creation unit 8 creates concepts to be displayed centering around the concept of interest based on the information stored in the memory 3. Determine their relationship 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 or 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 input 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 to use the keyboard 4 to directly specify the identification number of the concept that the user wants to focus on, and the other method is to use the coordinate input device 5 to specify the identification number of the concept that the user wants to focus on in the already displayed conceptual diagram. This is a method of specifying the concept of interest by inputting the coordinates of the position where the desired concept is displayed. Initially, it is conceivable to have the user specify which concept to focus on when creating a partial diagram using the keyboard 4, or to decide appropriately on the display device, but once the partial diagram is displayed, If so, the concept of interest can be specified using the coordinate input device 5 from now on.

FIG. 6 shows an example of the initial partial diagram display procedure. That is, first, the graphic display 9
The display screen and display buffer 7 are initialized (step g). Next, the concept of interest specifying unit 6 searches the concept list (FIG. 3) in the memory 3 based on the knowledge number of the concept specified by the keyboard 4 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 creates a relation list (fourth
) is searched to find concepts in which the identification number of concept 1 or the identification number of concept 2 is equal to the specified identification number, and related concepts and relationships therebetween are obtained (step i). Further, the display screen creation unit 8 obtains information regarding other concepts connected in a certain relationship to the designated concept from the concept list (FIG. 3) in the memory 3 (step j). Furthermore, the display screen creation section 8 plans the optimal arrangement on the screen of the relationship between the concepts thus obtained, 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 view is created in accordance with the above procedure, the display device is held until the user specifies the position using the coordinate input device 5 (step c in FIG. 3). When coordinates are input by the coordinate input device 5, the concept displayed at that position is determined by the concept designating section 6 (step d).

This procedure is detailed in FIG. That is, first, the concept of interest specifying unit 6 reads the position input using the coordinate input device 5 (step 1). 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 (steps n and o). If it is included in that concept, the identification number of the concept to which it refers is obtained (step p). 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, it is determined that the concept is not displayed at the position specified by the user (step r). If it is not the last concept, the pointer is moved to the next concept in the display buffer 7 after the concept currently pointed to by the pointer (step s). Then, for that concept, a similar procedure is used to determine whether the read position is included.

If the concept is not found through this procedure, a warning is issued to the user that "the location specification was invalid" (step e in Figure 3), and the user waits for input from the coordinate input device 5 again (step c). ). Also,
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 interacting with the display screen using the coordinate input device 5, and the partial diagram can be changed accordingly, so that the knowledge can be traced sequentially. This can significantly reduce the burden on the user when checking the information.

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 a function in which the user uses a coordinate input device to add or modify knowledge. Furthermore, in the above embodiment, an arbitrary concept is specified from among the plurality of displayed concepts using the coordinate input device. Either one of the concepts connected in this relationship may be designated 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. This has the advantage that concepts that are not displayed can be specified without having to remember 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 designated element of interest and the relationships therebetween are retrieved from the storage means, and information to be displayed is retrieved from the storage means. Since the arrangement of the images on the screen is determined sequentially, it is possible to display a partial diagram centered on the elements that the user really wants to see in an easy-to-read format.

Furthermore, according to the present invention, the display screen is created centering around the part the user wants to see while interacting with the display screen, so the user can accurately and easily see the part he or she wants to see one after another. This has the effect that it can be specified.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

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, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the knowledge display operation of the display device.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a concept list stored in the memory of the same display device, FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a related information list stored in the same memory, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the initial screen setting procedure in the same display device. Flowchart, 7th
Figure 8 is a diagram showing the storage information of the display buffer in the same display device, Figure 8 is a flowchart showing the dialog input procedure for the concept of interest in the same display device, and Figure 9 is the representation of knowledge consisting of a large number of concepts and their relationships. Figures 10 to 14 showing the form are diagrams for explaining conventional methods of displaying the same knowledge. 1...Host computer, 2...Display device control processor, 3...Memory, 4...Keyboard, 5...
...Coordinate input device, 6... Concept of interest designation section, 7...
Display buffer, 8...Display screen creation section, 9...Graphic display.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A display device for knowledge expression that graphically displays an element related to the knowledge expression of interest, other elements related thereto, and connection relationships between these elements, including a list indicating the elements and the relationships between these elements. a storage means for storing relationship information representing a connection relationship between the two; a focused element specifying means for specifying the focused element; and a focused element specifying means for specifying the focused element; Search the stored relational information to obtain elements to be displayed related to the element of interest and relational information representing the relationship between these elements, and determine the arrangement of the plurality of elements based on this search result. a display buffer for storing coordinate information of an element created by the display screen creation means; and a display device for displaying the coordinate information stored in the display buffer; coordinate input means, the specifying means specifying a position on the display screen of the display device;
When a position on the display screen is designated by this coordinate input means, a new element is found based on the coordinate information of the position and the coordinate information stored in the display buffer, and the point of interest is shifted from the element to the new element. A display device comprising a focused element changing means. 2. The element of interest specifying means is characterized in that 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 is set 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: Claim 1 characterized in that the elements of interest are elements that are not displayed and are connected in that relationship.
Section display device.