Patent ID: 7403211

Claim:
A method for segmenting an initial region on a display into a set of at least two newly-created independent regions using an input device, the initial region comprising a bounded area or volume of the display, the display including one or more regions within a larger area or volume, the set of newly-created independent regions arranged into a matrix of equally-sized regions, wherein the equally-sized regions in aggregate equal the dimensions of the initial region, the input device being adapted to convert a user input into a two or three-dimensional position, the method comprising: entering an interactive segmenting mode; then detecting the initial position of the input device at the time of entering the interactive segmenting mode; continually performing the following steps until the interactive segmenting mode remains: monitoring ongoing movements of the input device, computing a number of equidistant horizontal and vertical splits to apply to the initial region as a function of the distance of the input device to the initial position, wherein segmentation of the region is computed by equally sectioning the region into rows and/or columns by dividing in both x and v directions the distance from the current pointer position to the position of the pointer as it was when the user entered the segmenting mode with a constant scaling factor applied to the distance and using the result to determine the number of equal sized horizontal and vertical splits; and indicating positions of the pending splits to a user; leaving the interactive segmenting mode; replacing the initial region with the set of newly-created independent regions at the positions previously indicated to the user.