Patent ID: 7443401

Claim:
In a computing environment, a system comprising: a computer processor; computer system memory; a first component comprising a tree of clocks hierarchically related by synchronization rules and primitives, an event list generator, an interval generator, and a high-level timing component, wherein the clocks correspond to clock properties received from an application program, wherein the event list generator comprises a state machine and groups events initially scheduled by specified clock properties together with explicit interactive events received with respect to an animation into an event list, wherein the states of the state machine comprise inactive, active, pause, and resume, and wherein the interval generator uses the event list to compute a corresponding interval list; a second component comprising a low-level timing component and a low-level computation engine, wherein the second component receives the interval list from the first component, wherein the low-level component interpolates parameter intervals to obtain instantaneous values and decodes instructions into rendering commands to be executed by a graphics device, and wherein the low-level computation engine controls output based on current time and interpolates the location of an animated object based on interval data and current time; a system clock which provides consistent time to both the high-level timing component and the low-level timing component and enabling the first component and the second component to remain in synchronization; and an animation function subsystem that determines a current value for a varying property of an animated object.