Patent ID: 7476204

Claim:
A method of visually indicating to a user values of a physical property detected over a period of time by a plurality of sensors located along a segment of an organism, wherein the period of time includes a plurality of temporal intervals, the method comprising acts of: (A) for a first of the plurality of temporal intervals, with a computing device operative to provide a display and coupled to receive data from the plurality of the sensors: i) determining in real time, based on outputs of the plurality of sensors, a plurality of values of the physical property during the temporal interval, each of the plurality of values corresponding to a coordinate of a temporal plot having a temporal axis representing time and a spatial axis, oriented orthogonally to the temporal axis, representing a spatial dimension of the segment, each coordinate having a spatial position relative to the spatial axis that corresponds to a location on the segment having the value of the physical property, and each coordinate having a temporal position relative to the temporal axis that corresponds to the temporal interval; and ii) displaying the temporal plot, the displaying comprising visually indicating the plurality of values using, for each of the plurality of values, a tone corresponding to the value at a coordinate of the temporal plot corresponding to the value; (B) repeating act (A) for a next one or more of the plurality of temporal intervals in sequence, including concurrently visually indicating to the user on the temporal plot a plurality of values determined during the one or more next temporal intervals and the plurality of values determined during the first temporal interval, the tones displayed for the plurality of values determined during the temporal interval and the one or more next temporal intervals being displayed at positions relative to the temporal axis such that the temporal plot indicates changes in the physical property; and (C) concurrently with the acts (A) and (B), displaying an image of at least one anatomical feature of the segment aligned along the spatial axis with values of the plurality of values representing the property as measured with the sensors at the anatomical feature.