Design component selection computer with specification of product characteristics and of color by machine readable device

Claim 1

A process of operating a video archieve system for selection and display of design component information with the aid of a digital computer, comprising: a. providing said video archive system with an optical videodisk image database comprising a plurality of addressable images of design components on at least one side; b. providing said computer with a characteristics database comprising a plurality of records corresponding to each of said design components, each said record comprising a plurality of characteristic identifiers describing said corresponding design component and including at least characteristic identifiers in categories of price, color, manufacturer and location of an image of said corresponding design component on the optical videodisk; c. providing said computer with a selection of one or more desired product component characteristics, including color, said color being provided to said computer through machine-readable color input means which indicates said color as digitized quantities of hue, chroma and value so that each color falls within a predetermined block of color coordinates and means for selection of personal color preference from among a plurality of colors derived from a color module using an order of color dominance, said colors being adapted to be displayed by said video archive system; d. choosing, in said computer, records from said characteristics database having characteristic identifiers corresponding to said desired component characteristics; e. extracting from each said chosen product record, in said computer, a location of said design component image corresponding to said chosen record; f. transferring said location of said image corresponding to said chosen record from said computer to said video archive system, and causing said video archive system to display said image corresponding to said chosen record; and g. displaying said plurality of characteristic identifiers of said chosen record corresponding to said displayed image of said design component.

Claim 10

A method of operating a random-access video archive system for selection and display of design component information with the aid of a digital computer, comprising: a. providing said computer with a design component type selected from a plurality of predetermined design component type options; b. providing said computer with a dictionary database corresponding to said selected design component type and comprising a plurality of category dictionaries, each said category dictionary comprising a plurality of valid characteristic identifiers; c. providing said video archive system with an image database contained on a laser videodisk corresponding to said selected design component type and comprising a plurality of addressable images of design components; d. providing said computer with a characteristics database corresponding to said selected design component type and comprising a plurality of records having a one-to-one correspondence to said images of design components, each said record comprising a plurality of said characteristic identifiers describing said corresponding image and including at least a color and a location of said corresponding design component image on said laser videodisk; e. providing said computer with a selection of desired component characteristic identifiers including color derived from a color field having digitized references for hue, chroma and value using an order of color dominance by way of machine-readable color-input means; f. choosing, in said computer, records from said characteristics database, each said chosen record comprising at least said selection of desired component characteristic identifiers; g. extracting from each said chosen record, in said computer, said location of said corresponding design component image within said image database; h. providing each said location of each said corresponding image from said computer to said video archive system, and displaying each said corresponding image; and i. displaying said group of characteristic identifiers corresponding to each said displayed image from each said chosen record.

Claim 11

A method of operating a random-access video archive system for selection and display of design component information with the aid of a digital computer, comprising: a. providing said computer with a design component type selected from a plurality of predetermined design component type options; b. providing said computer with a dictionary database corresponding to said selected design component type and comprising a plurality of category dictionaries, each said category dictionary comprising a plurality of valid characteristic identifiers; c. providing said video archive system with an image database contained on a laser videodisk corresponding to said selected design component type and comprising a plurality of addressable images of design components; d. providing said computer with a characteristics database corresponding to said selected design component type and comprising a plurality of records having a one-to-one correspondence to said images of design components, each said record comprising a plurality of said characteristic identifiers describing said corresponding image and including at least a color and a location of said corresponding design component image on said laser videodisk; e. providing said computer with a selection of desired component characteristic identifiers including color derived from a color field having digitized references for hue, chroma and value using an order of color dominance by way of machine-readable color-input means; f. choosing, in said computer, records from said characteristics database, each said chosen record comprising at least said selection of desired component characteristic identifiers; g. extracting from each said chosen record, in said computer, said location of said corresponding design component image within said image database; h. providing each said location of each said corresponding image from said computer to said video archive system, and displaying each said corresponding image; and i. displaying said group of characteristic identifiers corresponding to each said displayed image from each said chosen record.