Patent ID: 6121981
Filing Date: 2000-09-19
Classification: G06T,G09G,Y10S

Abstract:
In a system for animating the user interface displayed on the display monitor of a computer, a method for generating an arbitrary-shaped animation, the method comprising:a) loading a sequence of animation frames;b) computing a non-rectangular bounding region for a non-transparent portion of a frame in the sequence in real time as the sequence of animation frames are being generated and displayed in the user interface, including computing a non-rectangular bounding region for a non-transparent portion of each frame in the sequence in real time in response to a request to playback the sequence from a client program;c) setting a region window to coordinates of the frame in a user interface of the computer, where the region window is in the foreground of the user interface;d) setting the region window to the computed non-rectangular bounding region;e) drawing the frame to the region window, including clipping the constructed frame to the computed bounding region; andf) repeating steps b-e to play the sequence of animation frames in the user interface.