Method and system for generating virtual scenes

Claim 2

Method according to claim 1, characterised in that said description model enables connecting to at least one database (8) and retrieving data from said database (8).

Claim 3

Method according to claim 1, characterised in that the virtual world data used during the translation process, including nodes, prototypes, routes, fields, and all types of field values, may be provided by said database (8).

Claim 4

Method according to claim 1, 2 or 3, characterised in that said description model comprises non-nested data records expressed by XML tags which have names and attribute specifications.

Claim 5

Method according to claim 1, characterised in that said structured markup language is SGML.

Claim 6

Method according to claim 1, characterised in that said structured markup language is XML.

Claim 7

Method according to claim 1, characterised in that said modelling language is VRML.

Claim 8

Method according to claim 1, characterised in that said modelling language is MPEG 4 scenes description format.

Claim 9

Method according to claim 4, characterised in that said XML tags comprises : empty tags used to denote empty elements, said empty tags do not contain neither other elements nor modelling language code, pairs of start-tags and end-tags having the same name used to define an element.

Claim 10

Method according to claim 3 to 9, characterised by the use of tags in description model language implementing different types of loops: FOR tag, used for numerical values; the loop is repeated with a numerical control variable varying from a beginning to an ending value, every time changed by a step value. ITERATOR tag, repeated for each value in a specified list of values, WHILE tag, repeated as long as a condition is satisfied, QUERY tag, used to get data from a database; repeated for every row of data selected from a database.

Claim 11

Method according to claim 10, wherein the loop tag has the following syntax: 〈FOR NAME="..." FROM="..." TO="..." STEP="..."〉 〈/FOR〉 where FOR element contains the description model language code that should be traversed a number of times with the changing control variable value, NAME is a mandatory attribute representing the name of the loop control variable, value of the control variable may be accessed inside the loop, FROM is a mandatory attribute representing the initial value for the loop control variable, during the first loop traversal, the control variable is set to the value defined by this attribute, and after each loop traversal the value of the control variable is being modified by the value specified by the STEP attribute, TO is a mandatory attribute representing the ending value for the control variable, when the control variable exceeds the value specified by the TO attribute, the loop is not repeated anymore, STEP is an optional attribute representing the value by which the control variable is modified after each loop traversal, the value of said STEP attribute may be positive indicating that the control variable should be increased after each loop traversal or negative indicating that the control variable value should be decreased.

Claim 12

Method according to claim 10, wherein the ITERATION tag has the following syntax: 〈ITERATION NAME="..." LIST="...,...,..."〉 〈/ITERATION〉 , where NAME is a mandatory attribute representing the name of the loop control variable, the value of the control variable may be accessed inside the loop, LIST is a mandatory attribute representing the list of numeric or non-numeric values for the loop control variable, during the first traversal of the loop, the control variable value being set to the first element of the list, and during each of the next traversals, the control variable being set to the succeeding elements in the list,. Said values can be constant values entered during the design-time or expressions calculated before assigning them to the loop control variable.

Claim 13

Method according to claim 10, wherein the WHILE tag has the following syntax: 〈WHILE CONDITION="..."〉 〈/WHILE〉 where CONDITION should be an expression evaluating to a Boolean value, the loop being repeated as long as the condition evaluates to TRUE.

Claim 14

Method according to claim 10, wherein the QUERY tag has the following syntax: 〈QUERY NAMES="...,...,..." SQL="..."〉 〈/QUERY〉 NAMES is a mandatory attribute representing a coma-separated list of names of loop control variables, values of attributes, selected from the database, being assigned to variables identified by these names.

Claim 15

Method according to claim 7 to 14, characterised by a conditional statement tag the structure of which is : 〈IF CONDITION="..."〉 〈THEN〉 〈/THEN〉 〈ELSE〉 〈/ELSE〉 〈/IF〉 CONDITION is a mandatory attribute of the IF tag containing an expression string that is evaluated to a Boolean value, said IF tag can contain only THEN and ELSE elements.

Claim 16

Method according to claim 15, characterised by an assigning values tag the structure of which is 〈SET NAME="..." VALUE="..."/〉 NAME is a mandatory attribute representing the name of the variable which can be later referenced by the use of this name, VALUE is an optional attribute representing the value that should be assigned to the variable, said value can be a simple constant value as an expression that must be first evaluated.

Claim 17

Method according to claim 16, characterised by an inserting values tag the structure of which is : 〈INSERT VALUE="..." TYPE="..."/〉 the INSERT tag being replaced with the value calculated from the contents of the VALUE attribute which is mandatory, said attribute can contain a simple value, a variable reference, or an expression that must be evaluated by the parser 4 prior to inserting, the TYPE attribute is optional and indicates the type of the value to be inserted, this attribute is used only for numerical and Boolean values.

Claim 18

Method according to claim 17, characterised by a connecting to database tag the structure of which is : 〈CONNECT CONN_STRING="..."/〉 said CONNECT tag being required only in a case when the virtual world definitions are outside the database and the parser 4 must explicitly connect to the database to get some required data.

Claim 19

Method according to claim 18, characterised by a tag for including a structured markup language file in another structured markup language file, the structure of said including tag is : 〈INLINE FILE="..."/〉 where INLINE tag has one mandatory attribute, FILE, which indicates location and name of the file to be included.

Claim 20

Method according to claim 19, characterised by a tag for defining classes, the structure of said tag is : NAME is a mandatory attribute, representing the name of the class, EXTENDS is an optional attribute representing names of class or classes extended by the newly created class, said names of class can be a single class name if the class inherits only from one superclass, or a coma-separated list of class names if the class inherits from more than one superclass, ABSTRACT is an optional attribute indicating that the class is abstract, INTERFACE is an optional attribute containing the interface part of the class definition such as declaration of attributes: fields, exposedFields, eventIns, and eventOuts in scenes modelling language, IMPLEMENTATION attribute containing the actual implementation of the class.

Claim 21

Method according to claim 4 to 20, characterised in that the XML Syntax of X-VRML is:

Claim 22

System for generating virtual scenes intended to be displayed on at least one display device comprising a parser (4) which constructs a map described by a structured markup language, a processor (6) that uses said map for producing a model described by scene modelling language, the system is characterised in that it comprises at least one database (8) which is connected to said parser (4) for data retrieval.

Claim 23

System for generating virtual scenes intended to be displayed on at least one display device comprising a parser (4) which constructs a map described by a structured markup language, a processor (6) that uses said map for producing a model described by scene modelling language.