Patent ID: 7716604

Claim:
An apparatus with thumbnail display for displaying thumbnail information of a content to select the content, comprising: storage means for storing the content, thumbnail information representing the outline of said content, and category information for classifying said content; 3D display means for disposing said content thumbnail information in an X-axis or a Y-axis direction, which is a surface direction, for each category information to display them in layers, and for disposing a plurality of said layers in a Z-axis direction, which is a depth direction, to three-dimensionally display them after changing the display size of the thumbnail information depending on the layer such that the size is larger for a more front side in the Z-axis direction; and operation means for controlling the display layer of the thumbnail information by said 3d display means, and for selecting the content to be viewed or accessed by the apparatus with thumbnail display, wherein said 3D display means includes a category name display means for displaying the category name of the content of the thumbnail information disposed on the most front side layer in the Z-axis direction, wherein said 3D display means scroll-displays the thumbnail information in any of the X-axis direction or Y-axis direction, scroll-displays the thumbnail information in one direction of the Z-axis direction in units of a layer, and changes the category name display in conjunction with the scroll in the Z-axis direction, and wherein said 3D display means displays a predetermined number of thumbnails less than the number of the contents included in the category, wherein thumbnails are scroll-displayed in either the X-axis direction or Y-axis direction so that all of the contents included in the category are thumbnail displayed.