Patent ID: 7439975

Claim:
A method for generating a shadow effect for objects in a graphical user interface, wherein the graphical user interface simulates a three-dimensional coordinate space by displaying objects whose dimensions are computed in the three-dimensional coordinate space, the method comprising: generating a shadow object corresponding to a first object, wherein the shadow object has dimensions and coordinates that are identical to the first object; displacing the shadow object along an x-dimension or a y-dimension of the three-dimensional coordinate space by a user-configurable displacement distance value; computing a z-dimensional difference value between a z-value of the first object and a z-value of a second object; calculating a translation value that is directly proportional to the computed z-dimensional difference value; translating the shadow object in accordance with the calculated translation value along the x-dimension or the y-dimension within the three-dimensional coordinate space that was not used to displace the shadow object such that the translation of the shadow object and the displacement of the shadow object occur along different dimensions in either order; determining an occluding region of the displaced, translated shadow object that partially occludes the second object; and displaying the first object, an unoccluded portion of the second object, and the occluding region of the shadow object on a display device.