Patent ID: 8225278

Claim:
A method for visualizing a state transition hierarchical diagram comprising: expressing, by a processor, said diagram in a tree structure with a parent level representing an initial state of an object and a child level representing a secondary state of the object, the secondary state selected from the group consisting of: a transition state and a final state, with each level in the hierarchy having a state represented as a node, and a transition represented as a line between two nodes, said tree structure stored in memory in communication with the processor; comparing, by the processor, each node of a modified version of said diagram with a corresponding node of an earlier version of said diagram; counting, by the processor, all modifications to said compared nodes of said diagrams; comparing, by the processor, each transition of said modified version of said diagram with a corresponding transition of said earlier version of said diagram; counting, by the processor, all modifications to said compared transitions of said diagrams; quantifying, by the processor, said counted modifications and transferring each quantified modification in each child node at the child level to a parent node at the parent level; and displaying said quantified modifications on the parent level.