William James Vanmelle

age ~72

from Los Altos, CA

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Method And Apparatus For Maintaining Links Between Graphic Objects In A Free-Form Graphics Display System
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US Patent:

57987696, Aug 25, 1998
Filed:

Aug 15, 1996
Appl. No.:

8/698741
Inventors:

Patrick Chiu - Menlo Park CA
Thomas P. Moran - Palo Alto CA
William J. vanMelle - Los Altos CA
Assignee:

Xerox Corporation - Stamford CT
International Classification:

G06F 1500
US Classification:

345442
Abstract:

In a computer controlled display system capable of supporting free form graphical input, techniques for maintaining the topology of a node-link structure when nodes are moved. When a node is moved, arbitrarily shaped links to other nodes will automatically be reshaped. The manner in which the link reshapes will depend on where a node is moved relative to the node to which it is linked. Various techniques for reshaping the node in order to retain the node-link structure topology are provided. A link may be reshaped by curve transformation or flipping the link shape about an axis. Curve transformation is a technique wherein the shape characteristics of a link are retained no matter where the node is moved. However, links that intersect, i. e. pass through, the nodes may arise from such reshaping.