The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for providing a multiuser interactive display system, whereby multiple users can login simultaneously to and share the same computer-based graphical workspace, share individual content, and interact with the shared contents concurrently in a virtual graphical desktop environment.
The ability to interpret and digest various digital data and information produced by various sources is important. As huge amounts of digital data and information are generated every day at continually increasing volumes, the need exists for an effective way to present these information and data for easy filtering, comparison and analysis.
Ultra-high resolution single panel monitors and large-scale tiled display walls are often used for information and data presentations of, for example, images, video, pdf documents, live streams (including audiovisual conferencing), and other types of media files.
Traditionally, large-scale tiled display walls could only be built with a cluster of computers. This requirement has been the major barrier that prevents wider range of users from adapting or transitioning to display wall technologies, due to the cost and complexity required to build and maintain a computer cluster. With the advent of modern multi-headed graphics hardware, however, users can now more easily build ultra-high resolution display walls.
Display units 22 can be run by a single workstation with hardware that includes multiple head high-end graphics cards. Major graphics hardware manufacturers such as NVIDIA, AMD, and Matrox, for example, provide multi-head graphics display technologies, such as NVIDIA Mosaic, AMD Eyefinity, and Matrox PowerDesk. Any of these products can enable generation of a single virtual desktop screen over the array of tiled, multiple display units 22 to provide a single, ultra-high resolution graphical workspace on a virtual screen defined by display wall 20. Display wall 20 can thus comprise a tiled array of high definition display units 22 over which seamlessly spans a large, ultra-high resolution display 24. Alternatively, display 24 may be provided on a single panel monitor, which may be a single one of display units 22.
Traditional graphical desktop operating systems are designed based on the assumption that a single user physically interacts with the workstation 26 using a keyboard and a mouse (not shown). There can be multiple different user accounts and multiple users can remotely login simultaneously. However, multiuser collaboration where multiple users sit together in the same room and simultaneously interact with contents displayed on a single common display wall is highly limited because only a single user can directly interact with graphical contents on PC 26. In other words, such graphics desktop operating systems are presently designed for a single user interaction scheme, in which a single user owns the graphical desktop environment. A user gains access to a desktop session of a computer system by logging in with his user credential, which enables a shared system to provide each user a separate private workspace. Once a user has logged in, the desktop session is owned by the user. Therefore, this traditional design does not allow multiple users to login to the same graphical desktop workspace concurrently. Such systems are limited in that they allow only the single user currently logged in to the PC 26 to access the graphical contents he shares and have the ability to interact with that content. When such a PC is attached to display wall 20, the display wall's potential as a multiuser collaborative environment remains similarly limited. Display wall systems utilizing the traditional scheme (i.e., a graphical desktop space owned by a single user) that allow contents from separate sources to be visualized simultaneously can limit the collaboration capability of the display wall environment.
It is desirable to resolve this limitation, and provide a single virtual graphical desktop environment in which multiple users can simultaneously login to and share the same workspace, share individual content, and concurrently interact with the shared contents.
Many user environments or forums would benefit from the provision of such a virtual graphical desktop environment. One such example is education. The classroom environment is changing rapidly as students rarely absorb lectures passively from their desks. Decades of research speak to the educational benefits of active learning; however, this paradigm shift in how information is shared, created and exchanged challenges those seeking to provide rich learning experiences. These challenges can be met by providing a virtual blackboard where instructors and students could share various media simultaneously and concurrently interact with the media, enhancing the learning experience. Such an interactive graphical desktop environment can be further enhanced by being adapted to include a large-scale display wall instead of or in addition to a single panel monitor.
Another user environment or forum that stands to benefit from utilizing such an interactive graphical desktop environment is business enterprise. The “more heads are better” philosophy is widely accepted by businesspeople, and the benefits of collaboration by individuals with a sense of shared purpose are well documented. Businesses could more effectively generate, funnel and capture the collaborative synergy while it happens by utilizing a highly collaborative virtual graphical desktop environment capable of displaying digital content from multiple sources in various formats that allows multiple users to instantly share information, and annotate the shared content simultaneously. Facilitating such multiuser collaboration could greatly improve business productivity, more so if it also involves use of a large-scale display wall instead of or in addition to a single panel monitor.
In the era of big data, synthesizing information challenges the most expert thought leaders. Even more difficult can be the task of communicating aggregate insights concurrently contributed from multiple sources to others needing to understand the big picture. Thus, another user environment or forum that could benefit from facilitating such collaboration by multiple specialists is healthcare.
The present disclosure beneficially provides a multiuser interactive display system that enables improvements in the abilities of individuals and groups to interpret and digest digital data and information. The display system may include a single panel monitor, or be adapted to include a large-scale display wall.
The disclosed multiuser interactive display system (the “system”), an embodiment of which may become known as Thrive, includes a computer software package designed to improve multiuser collaborative experiences in an environment having a single panel monitor and/or a large, ultra-high resolution tiled display wall. The system achieves this by allowing multiple users to share the same graphical workspace and interact with contents in the workspace simultaneously while maintaining awareness of content ownership and being able to distinguish between each user's interactions with the respective content.
The system software consists of two independent applications: the system software server (system server) and the system software client (system client). The system server runs in a high-performance graphics workstation that, in certain embodiments, is connected to the multiple display units of a display wall. In such embodiments, the system server provides a single virtual graphical desktop workspace that seamlessly spans across the tiled display units. Alternatively, the workstation is connected to a ultra-high resolution single panel monitor providing the same graphical workspace in a smaller dimension. Regardless of the display configuration, the system software enables multiuser interactivity. The system client runs in each user's individual input device (typically a laptop) and is used to communicate (preferably wirelessly) with the system server for the users to share content displayed on the display wall, and remotely interact with shared content using their respective individual input devices.
The disclosed system facilitates a highly collaborative, shared workspace because it can display multiple digital contents simultaneously to the collaborating users, and allow the users to interact with the various displayed contents concurrently.
In one embodiment, there is provided a method for manipulating the display of information shown on a video display including, receiving at a server, a plurality of transmitted information files, each of the plurality of transmitted information files begin transmitted by a different one of a plurality of computing devices. The method includes establishing at the server a plurality of communication channels, wherein each of the plurality of communication channels is dedicated to a different one of the plurality of computing devices. The method further includes retaining each of the plurality of transmitted information files on the server and displaying each of the plurality of transmitted information files concurrently on the display.
In another embodiment, there is provided a method for processing multiple user interactions with information shown on a video display wall including storing at a server a plurality of information files transmitted by a plurality of computing devices. The method further includes displaying on the display wall each of the plurality of stored information files and associating one of a plurality of graphical user interface components with a specific one of the plurality of computing devices. The method also includes displaying on the display wall the graphical user interface component for each of the plurality of computing devices, wherein the displayed graphical user interface component is directly controlled by the associated one of the plurality of computing devices.
In still another embodiment, there is provided a video display wall system for displaying information provided by a plurality of computing devices each interacting with the video display wall system at the discretion of a user including a display wall and a system server. The system server is operatively coupled to the display wall and to the plurality of computing devices. The system server includes a communication manager, configured to receive a plurality of transmitted interaction messages from each of the plurality of computing devices, a file manager, a scene renderer and a multiuser interaction manager. The file manager is configured to receive a media file from each of the plurality of computing devices. The scene renderer is configured to render the media file from each of the plurality of computing devices for display on the display wall as the video information. The multiuser interaction manager is configured to direct interactions of each of the plurality of the computing device with the displayed video information based on the received interaction messages.
The above-mentioned aspects and other characteristics and advantages of a method or system according to the present disclosure will become more apparent and will be better understood by reference to the following description of exemplary embodiments taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views.
The embodiments described below are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms or steps disclosed in the following detailed description, but have been chosen and are herein described so that others skilled in the art may appreciate and understand principles and practices according to the present disclosure, and may utilize their teachings. It is, therefore, to be understood that the invention herein described is not limited in its application to the details set forth in the following description or illustrated in the following drawings, and is capable of having other embodiments and of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways.
The present disclosure may be practiced with “object-oriented” software, and particularly with an “object-oriented” operating system. The “object-oriented” software is organized into “objects,” each typically including a block of computer instructions describing various procedures (“methods”) to be performed in response to “messages” sent to the object or “events” which occur with the object. Such operations include, for example, the manipulation of variables, the activation of an object by an external event, and the transmission of one or more messages to other objects.
Messages are sent and received between objects having certain functions and having knowledge to carry out processes. Messages are generated in response to user instructions, for example, by a user activating an icon with a “mouse” pointer and thereby generating an event. Also, messages may be generated by an object in response to the receipt of a message. When one of the objects receives a message, the object carries out an operation (a message procedure) corresponding to the message and, if necessary, returns a result of the operation. Each object has a region where internal states (instance variables) of the object itself are stored and where the other objects are not allowed to access. One feature of an object-oriented system is inheritance. For example, an object for drawing a “circle” on a display may inherit functions and knowledge from another object for drawing a “shape” on a display.
A programmer “programs” in an object-oriented programming language by writing individual blocks of code each of which creates an object by defining its methods. A collection of such objects adapted to communicate with one another by messages effects an object-oriented program. Object-oriented computer programming facilitates the modeling of interactive systems in that each component of the system can be modeled with an object, the behavior of each component being simulated by the methods of its corresponding object, and the interactions between components being simulated by messages transmitted between objects.
An operator may stimulate a collection of interrelated objects comprising an object-oriented program by sending a message to one of the objects. The receipt of the message may cause the object to respond by carrying out predetermined functions which may include sending additional messages to one or more other objects. The other objects may in turn carry out additional functions in response to the messages they receive, including sending still more messages. In this manner, sequences and combinations of message and response may continue or may come to an end when all messages have been responded to and no new messages are being sent. When modeling systems utilize an object-oriented language, a programmer need only think in terms of how each component of a modeled system responds to a stimulus and not in terms of the sequence of operations to be performed in response to some stimulus. Such a sequence of operations naturally flows out of the interactions between the objects in response to the stimulus, and need not be preordained by the programmer.
Although object-oriented programming makes simulation of systems of interrelated components more intuitive, the operation of an object-oriented program is often difficult to understand because the sequence of operations carried out by an object-oriented program is usually not immediately apparent from a software listing as in the case for sequentially organized programs. Nor is it easy to determine how an object-oriented program works by simply observing the readily apparent manifestations of its operation. Most of the operations carried out by a computer in response to a program are “invisible” to an observer because typically only a relatively few steps in a program produce an observable computer output.
Several terms which are used frequently have specialized meanings in the present context. The term “object” relates to a set of computer instructions and associated data which can be activated directly or indirectly by the user. The terms “windowing environment,” “running in windows,” and “object-oriented operating system” are used to denote a computer user interface in which information is manipulated and displayed on a video display such as within bounded regions on a raster scanned video display. The terms “network,” “local area network,” “LAN,” “wide area network,” and “WAN” refer to two or more computers which are connected so that messages may be transmitted between the computers. In such computer networks, typically one or more computers operate as a “server,” a computer with large storage devices such as hard disk drives and communication hardware to operate peripheral devices such as display walls, printers or modems. Other computers provide a user interface so that users of computer networks can access network resources, such as shared data files, common peripheral devices, and inter-computer communication. Users activate computer programs or network resources to create “processes” which include both the general operation of the computer program along with operations having specific characteristics determined by input variables and environment.
The embodiment of multiuser interactive display system 18 (i.e., system 18 or “the system”) described herein includes display wall 20 as described above. It is to be understood, however, that certain embodiments of system 18 may be adapted to instead or additionally include one or more single panel monitors to provide display 24. System 18 also utilizes a single workstation or PC 26′, a portion of which is shown in
The multiuser interaction model of system 18 provides a virtual graphical desktop session (a workspace) to which multiple users can login, share contents, and interact concurrently. There are two fundamental premises of enabling multiuser interactivity:
(1) A mechanism is provided that can concurrently receive multiple users' interaction messages and execute those interactions. This premise provides a notion of the shared desktop workspace where each participating user can use his own input device/laptop to interact with the shared content.
(2) Graphical objects appearing on the display wall can be concurrently interacted with, and the system server is aware of which user is interacting with those graphical objects. This premise maintains ownership information of the media and the interactions in the shared workspace where different users can share and interact simultaneously.
Thus the core of the multiuser collaborative environments enabled by system 18 consists of the mechanism that allows multiple users to stream their input device events concurrently and the newly designed graphical user interface (GUI) components that are aware of multiuser interactions on them.
The users interact with the displayed shared media using their respective individual input devices 34 connected to or built in their laptops. Each laptop 34 has installed on it the system software client, which enables the laptop to function as one of a plurality of system clients 42. In the depicted example, Laptop User A and Laptop User B share media files 38 using the respective laptop's system client 42. The shared media files 38 are, as shown, media file X shared by Laptop User A, and media files Y and Z shared by Laptop User B. These media files 38 are transmitted over the respective wireless communication channels 36 to the workstation 26′ where system server 46 is running. System server 46 then provides visualizations 44 of those media on display wall 20.
The interactions of each user with the shared media visualizations 44 occur in the user's respective input device/laptop 34 in real time. In this example, Laptop User A and C respectively interact with media visualization X and media visualization Z. The respective system client 42 translate the user interactions of Laptop User A and Laptop User C occurring in their devices in real time and transmit them as interaction messages 40 over the respective wireless channel A or C to system server 46. Upon receiving these interaction messages 40, system server 46 interprets the interaction messages 40 and correspondingly interacts with the media visualization 44 on display wall 20 on behalf of the particular user from whom the interaction message 40 was sent. In the depicted example, system server 46 interacts with media visualization X (shared by Laptop User A) on behalf of Laptop User A, and with media visualization Z (shared by Laptop User B) on behalf of Laptop User C.
The overall software architecture of system 18 can be understood with reference to
Core software components in scene utilities layer 50 include: multiuser interaction manager 62; user authenticator 64; and application factory 66.
Core software components in communication manager layer 52 include a plurality of message handlers 68 each associated with the respective, user-specific system client 42 of a user's input device 34. Message transmissions between system server 46 and the respective user input devices 34 are between the respective message handler 68 of communication manager layer 52 and the system client 42 running in the corresponding user's laptop.
File transmissions between system server 46 and the respective user input devices 34 are between file manager 54 of system server 46 and the system client 42 of each user input device 34.
One of the main goals of system server 46 is enabling a virtual collaborative graphical desktop workspace in which multiple users can simultaneously interact with and alter the scene. Once a user communicates through communication manager layer 52, then scene utilities layer 50 takes necessary actions to alter the scene content. Multiuser interactivity is enabled mainly by communication manager layer 52 and multiuser interaction manager 62 of system server 46. Each message handler 68 in communication manager layer 52 is a separate thread that handles the communication between system server 46 and the system client 42 of a particular user. This allows the interaction messages 40 from multiple users to be received concurrently at communication manager layer 52. Communication manager layer 52 then serializes those concurrently communicated interaction messages 40 and forwards them to multiuser interaction manager 62 sequentially.
The sharing of media files 38 through system client 42 is handled by file manager 54 of system server 46. Whenever file manager 54 receives a media file 38 of a particular type it notifies application factory 66 of scene utilities layer 50, wherein an instance of the corresponding application 56 for that file type is created. Application factory 66 then gives the application instance to scene and workspace manager 60 of scene layer 48. The application instance is visualized by scene renderer 58 of scene layer 48 and directed to display wall 20 through graphics card(s) 28, 30, 32.
AbstractWidget 74 is the base class of all multiuser-aware GUI components (the concrete GUI component class that inherits AbstractGUlWidget 76) and the GUI applications (the concrete application class that inherits AbstractAppWidget 78). These GUI components and GUI applications provide responses to user interactions by reimplementing handler functions 80 that are prototyped in AbstractWidget 74. As shown in
While exemplary embodiments incorporating the principles of the present invention have been disclosed hereinabove, the present invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. Instead, this system software is intended to cover any variations, uses, or adaptations of the invention using its general principles. Further, this system software is intended to cover such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice in the art to which this invention pertains and which fall within the limits of the appended claims.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/130,380 entitled “Multiuser Interactive Display System and Method”, filed Mar. 9, 2015, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62130380 | Mar 2015 | US |