Patent ID: 7801763

Claim:
A point of sale computer system that allows a customer to select and consummate a sale himself comprising: a display configured to allow the customer to view a scene related to the selection and consummation process, wherein the scene is represented as a directed acyclic graph configured to permit at least one of parent/child relationships and hierarchical constructs; an input device configured to be operated by the customer during the selection and consummation process and to generate control signals in response to operation of the input device by the customer; graphics storage media configured to store two and three-dimensional graphics data relating to the sale, wherein the three dimensional graphics data comprises data displayable from a plurality of viewing perspectives; business rules storage media configured to store business rules that specify the graphics that should be displayed during the selection and consummation process based on the control signals from the input device, and further configured to specify which of the plurality of viewing perspectives of the three-dimensional graphics data should be displayed, wherein variations of the viewing perspectives are defined as a function of time; and a processing system configured to: communicate with the display, the input device, the graphics storage media and the business rules storage media; obtain selected two and three-dimensional graphics data in real time from the graphics storage media in response to control signals received from the input device and in accordance with the business rules; composite the obtained two and three-dimensional graphics data in real time into a non-linear, three-dimensional graphics presentation, wherein the three-dimensional graphics presentation is provided by a wrapper comprising a layer of classes and functions which specify what, how, and where the two and three-dimensional graphics data is presented within the scene; and deliver the three-dimensional graphics presentation in real time to the display for viewing by the customer, wherein the delivered three-dimensional graphics presentation displays two dimensional graphics elements, and further displays three-dimensional graphics elements from a plurality of viewing perspectives, wherein the plurality of viewing perspectives are varied as a function of time.