Patent Application
20070050268
The present invention relates to providing additional content related to objects manipulated in a software application using search technology, and more particularly to a method and system for matching computer-aided design (CAD) objects with manufacturer and supplier content in a CAD application.
A design process moves from conceptual to specific through a set of phases. For example, the architectural design process has been formalized into the following phases:
Phase I: Pre-Design (PD)
Phase II: Schematic Design (SD)
Phase III: Design Development (DD)
Phase IV: Construction Document Production (CD)
Much of the design process can be performed through the use of a computer-aided design (CAD) application, which generates a virtual design. As a designer moves through each phase of the design process using the CAD application, oftentimes the designer or user needs to acquire and incorporate new, alternative, supplemental, and more-refined content about the components or objects of the system being designed. While utilizing a conventional (CAD) application, the designer or any CAD application user is faced with several challenges when trying to procure this additional content related to the CAD objects.
CAD objects used to create or describe components or a system of components can have varying or even no schema to describe, classify and define the objects. Thus, searching for relevant content for these objects by leveraging search engine technology is highly dependent on the particular search algorithm. At the other end of the spectrum, some CAD applications use a formal model to define CAD objects. Use of such a model allows for highly-structured queries against a data source such as a database. However, retrieving new, alternative, supplemental, and more-refined content from such a data source is dependent on content providers adhering to the database schema and supplying content to the database. In addition, there are no formal mechanisms to handle data for objects that are outside the structure of CAD object model; or for content outside the database schema.
Accordingly, what is needed is a seamless, flexible system within a CAD application that provides the CAD user with contextually-relevant content about CAD objects. The present invention addresses such a need.
A method and system integrated into a CAD application is disclosed for providing additional content related to CAD objects manipulated in the CAD application. Aspects of the present invention include automatically extracting a list of one or more attributes associated with the one or more CAD objects in response to a user interacting with the one or more CAD objects; sending the list attributes along with additional special keywords that identify that the CAD application is the source of the list to a pay-for-placement search engine; and receiving object content in a form that can be incorporated and displayed in the CAD application from the pay-for-placement search engine.
According to the method and system disclosed herein, the present invention thus effectively matches CAD objects with relevant manufacturer- and supplier-supplied content to be incorporated into the CAD document providing value and efficiency to the CAD user and effectively targeting manufacturer and supplier product to a captive and buying audience. The use of a pay-for-placement search engine, as opposed to a non-pay-for-placement one, is significant because manufacturers and suppliers of goods represented by the CAD objects will be given incentive to provide relevant content for the CAD object attribute keywords via this advertising vehicle. The list of attributes sent to the search engine may include special keywords signaling to manufacturers and suppliers that the query originated from the CAD application. Thus, the manufacturers and suppliers have the opportunity to provide relevant CAD-application-specific content. Use of keywords and a pay-for-placement search engine as opposed to a database query against a database alleviates the restriction that content providers must adhere to the database schema to publish their content.
The present invention relates to a method and system for providing additional content related to objects manipulated in a software application using search technology. The following description is presented to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention and is provided in the context of a patent application and its requirements. Various modifications to the preferred embodiments and the generic principles and features described herein will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and features described herein.
The present invention provides a computer-aided design (CAD) application that effectively matches CAD objects with manufacturer- and supplier-supplied content relevant to the objects that the CAD application user is selecting, modifying, or adding to a CAD design. The CAD application of the present invention provides the manufacturer and supplier content by extracting and processing attributes of CAD objects and submitting the CAD object attributes to a pay-for-placement search engine. the CAD application then receives the additional content in a form that can be incorporated and displayed in the CAD application, such as pay-for-placement advertisements. The CAD application user may be presented with the list of CAD object attributes, and the CAD application user has the ability to either refine the list of keywords or create a list of keywords independent of the CAD objects in the CAD document. The CAD application user can then send this refined or new list to the pay-for-placement engine to generate and display refined or new content within the CAD application.
As will be appreciated by those with ordinary skill in the art, commercially available pay-for-placement search engines are typically used to provide relevant advertisements to web browser users in two ways: 1) When users actively search for content using specific keywords, pay-for-placement search engines allow advertisers to present advertisements for products relevant to those keywords, and 2) the pay-for-placement search engine results can also be embedded in web pages that contain relevant content. For example, GOOGLE ADWORDS/ADSENSE technology can present the user with advertisements for coffee and NOT advertisements about the island of Java or the Java programming language on a web page that has text passages containing the words “java,” “cup,” and “coffee” but does not contain the words “Indonesia,” “island,” “programming,” or “C++.”
Although in a preferred embodiment, the pay-for-placement search engine interface and logic 25 is embedded in a CAD application 12, the pay-for-placement search engine interface and logic 25 may be embedded in other types of software applications that enable users to manipulate graphical objects therein, such as the drawing program MICROSOFT VISIO, for instance. That is, the present invention enables manufacturers and suppliers 28 of goods represented by the CAD objects 18 to further maximize the return on advertising investment by the placement of pay-for-placement search engine technology in any computer applications where: 1) one of the by-products of using the computer application is the purchase of the product; 2) the computer application contains discrete application objects that are selected, added, or modified in the computer application; 3) the objects are relevant to products that lead to a purchase; and 4) advertisers can target these objects with relevant content.
After a user has invoked the CAD application 12, in step 52 the CAD application 12 displays the CAD objects 18 for user selection and manipulation during creation of a design.
Referring again to
Referring again to both
In a further embodiment, in step 60, the CAD application 12 may present the user with the extracted list of attributes as keywords (e.g., “window” and “double-hung” without the special keywords) to allow the user to interactively refine the list of keywords. In a preferred embodiment, the CAD application 12 presents the attributes as keywords in an editable text box 103 in the displayed pay-for-placement search engine interface GUI 25a.
Referring to both
Finally,
Embedding the results of the pay-for-placement search engine 26 relevant to the CAD objects 18 into the CAD application 12 in the search engine interface GUI 25a in accordance with the preferred embodiment, enables manufacturers and suppliers 28 to maximize their return on advertising investment by presenting advertisements to a ready-to-buy audience, i.e., CAD users. Once manufacturers and suppliers 28 are aware that such an application 12 is being used to generate advertisements, which is achieved by sending the additional special keywords to the pay-for-placement search engine, advertisers may put relevant content in their advertisements that will give the CAD application user incentive to “click through” the advertisement. Thus, the marketplace will drive the generation and presentation of relevant content to the CAD application user.
A method and system for matching CAD application objects to relevant content provided by manufacturers and suppliers leveraging pay-for-placement search engine technology has been disclosed. Software written according to the present invention may be stored on a computer-readable medium, such as a removable memory, or transmitted over a network, and loaded into the computer for execution. The present invention has been described in accordance with the embodiments shown, and one of ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that there could be variations to the embodiments, and any variations would be within the spirit and scope of the present invention. Accordingly, many modifications may be made by one of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
