Patent ID: 9460537
Filing Date: 2016-10-04
CPC Classification: G06T

Claim Text:
1. An apparatus for designing an animation that expresses a transition of display forms of an object, said apparatus comprising: a reception unit adapted to receive an operation for setting key frames in the animation at one or more time points on a time axis displayed on a screen, the time axis corresponding to the animation, and for associating a display form of the object at each of the set key frames with the key frame, wherein said reception unit receives, as the operation, (i) a first instruction for associating a display form of the object that is newly defined with a key frame that is an operation target and (ii) a second instruction for assigning, to a key frame that is an operation target, reference information to a display form of the object associated with an existing key frame: and a display control unit adapted to display indicators representing the key frames set at the time points, at one or more time points at which the key frames have been set, on the time axis displayed on the screen, wherein said display control unit displays, in a case where the second instruction for assigning, to a second key frame that is different from a first key frame of one or more key frames that have been already set on the time axis, reference information to a display form of the object associated with the first key frame that is received by the reception unit, indicators having the same appearance, as an indicator representing the first key frame and an indicator representing the second key frame to be displayed on the time axis, wherein appearances of the indicator representing the first key frame and the indicator representing the second key frame are different from appearances of an indicator representing the other key frames to which a display form of the object different from a display form of the object at the first key frame and the second key frame of the already set one or more key frames is instructed.