Patent ID: 7469400

Claim:
A data processing system for presenting a simulated system, said data processing system comprising: a display device; processing resources; and data storage coupled to the processing resources and including at least one database representing said simulated system and a presentation program executable by the processing resources to present a graphical representation of said simulated system within said display device, said presentation program including: means for displaying within the display device a respective one of a plurality of design graphical representations for each of a plurality of hierarchically arranged design entity instances within the simulated system, said plurality of design entity instances including a particular design entity instance containing a latch that is represented by a particular design graphical representation; means for identifying, within said database, a configuration entity instance associated with said particular design entity, wherein said configuration entity instance has a plurality of different settings that each reflects a value of the latch; means for presenting, within the display device, a configuration graphical representation of said configuration entity instance in association with the particular design graphical representation corresponding to the particular design entity instance; and means for presenting, within the display device, a current setting of said configuration entity instance concurrently with the configuration graphical representation; wherein said means for displaying a respective one of a plurality of design graphical representations for each of a plurality of hierarchically arranged design entity instances comprises means for presenting design graphical representations for only selected design entity instances and for excluding from presentation a design graphical representation for at least one other design entity instance in response to a region parameter.