Patent ID: 8654104

Claim:
A method of manipulating a three-dimensional object displayed in a multi-touch display device, the method comprising: displaying the object in two dimensions on the display device, the object having an initial three-dimensional location and an initial three-dimensional rotational orientation; detecting one or more input mechanisms touching one or more touch points on the display device; determining a two-dimensional location of each of the one or more touch points on the display device; determining, for each of the one or more touch points, a three-dimensional contact point on a surface of the object that corresponds to the two-dimensional location of the touch point; detecting a change in applied pressure by the one or more input mechanisms at a selected one of the touch points that corresponds to a selected one of the contact points; determining a target depth value for the selected contact point based on the change in applied pressure at the selected touch point; calculating a three-dimensional transformation of the object by specifying at least one of a new three-dimensional rotation and a new three-dimensional location for the object, and reducing a difference between a depth value of the selected contact point after the object transformation and the target depth value; transforming the object using the three-dimensional transformation such that the transformed object is positioned and rotated in accordance with the at least one of the new three-dimensional location and the new three-dimensional rotation; and displaying the transformed three-dimensional object on the display device.