Patent ID: 7797402

Claim:
A method of buffering, on a user platform, data associated with a spatial publishing object data store, the method comprising: determining a buffer distance measured from a user presence in a spatial publishing object space, wherein the buffer distance is based at least in part on at least one of: capacity of a communications path between the spatial publishing object data store and the user platform; an availability of memory at the user platform; traffic measures in the communications path; processing resources available at the user platform; amount of spatial publishing objects within a distance of the user presence; amount of spatial publishing objects in the spatial publishing object space; type of spatial publishing objects; proximity of at least one spatial publishing object to the user presence; and a movement vector of the user presence in the spatial publishing object space; buffering data on the user platform for those spatial publishing objects within the buffering distance; wherein a movement of the user presence in the spatial publishing object space initiates the background buffering of spatial publishing object data such that spatial publishing object data for a proximate spatial publishing object in the spatial publishing object space is available in the buffer for presenting to the user when the user's presence is a predetermined distance from the proximate spatial publishing object.