Patent ID: 7689579

Claim:
A system for developing computer models for collection and display of data, the system comprising: a component builder, executed by a processing device, that provides functionality for modeling component definitions that associate tag-based point data and first non-point data through inclusion in a joined table comprising both tag-based point data and first non-point data, wherein the tag-based point data comprises data collected from at least one addressable informational source and the first non-point data comprises context-defining data associated with the tag-based point data, said tag-based point data changing more frequently than said first non-point data; a connection for defining a mechanism to utilize the first non-point data and other information to uniquely identify the data to be collected from the at least one addressable informational source, said tag-based point data being collected at a first frequency, said first non-point data being collected at a second frequency lower than the first frequency; and a view builder that provides functionality for generating views that correspond to instantiations of the component definitions generated by the component builder specifying how the tag-based point data and the first non-point data are displayed; wherein the component builder further provides functionality for associating second non-point data with the tag-based point data and the first non-point data within the modeled component definition, wherein the second non-point data is associated with a non-tag-based informational source; wherein integration of the second non-point data of the non-tag-based informational source with the tag-based point data and the non-point data is facilitated by the modeled component definition; wherein the joined table has a structure, and wherein the structure of the joined table allows the tag-based point data and the first non-point data contained therein to be associated with the second non-point data thereby facilitating data integration; wherein the view builder further provides functionality for embedding at least one previously defined view within a second view such that the at least one previously defined view represents subcomponents of the second view; and wherein the view builder further provides functionality for embedding at least one previously defined second view within a third view such that the at least one previously defined second view represents a subcomponent of the third view.