Patent ID: 7313761

Claim:
A method for generating a graphical representation of interrelationships among a plurality of machine vision entities for display as a graphical user interface on a screen of a visual display unit of a machine vision system, said method comprising: acquiring a first specification that describes a plurality of hierarchical interrelationships among said plurality of machine vision entities, the first specification being for constructing and displaying a tree-style graphical representation of the hierarchical interrelationships among said plurality of machine vision entities; acquiring a second specification that describes a plurality of non-hierarchical data flow interrelationships among said plurality of entities, the second specification being for adding and displaying non-hierarchical data flow interrelationships among the plurality of machine vision entities; constructing said graphical representation simultaneously representing graphically on the screen of the visual display unit of the machine vision system both said plurality of hierarchical interrelationships among said plurality of machine vision entities, and said plurality of non-hierarchical data flow interrelationships among said plurality of machine vision entities; and displaying said graphical representation to produce said graphical user interface on said screen of said visual display unit of said machine vision system.