Patent ID: 7382374

Claim:
A computerized method of positioning in a visualization system a pointer in a three-dimensional scene, the method comprising: showing a view of the three-dimensional scene on a two-dimensional display as projected onto a camera's view projection plane from a defined viewpoint of the camera, the view of the three-dimensional scene including a view of the pointer as projected onto the view projection plane from the viewpoint; animating automatically the view of the three-dimensional scene, by applying a transformation to the three-dimensional scene or the camera, to provide to a user the view of the three-dimensional scene with a kinetic depth effect, the transformation being selected by the user from a plurality of transformations; receiving from the user, while animating the view, signals for generating positioning values for three dimensions; and in response to the signals, positioning the pointer in the three-dimensional scene based on the positioning values while animating the view, wherein the animating the view includes the applying the transformation so that the view of the pointer does essentially not move as a result of the transformation.