Method and apparatus for viewing three dimensional objects

Claim 1

A computer program product for displaying a series of two-dimensional representations of a three-dimensional object to a viewer to provide said viewer with a three-dimensional image of said object, said computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having embodied therein the following elements: a) computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to define a coordinate system including three mutually orthogonal unit vectors, e1, e2, and e3; b) computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to define a set of coordinates corresponding to a base orientation of said three-dimensional object; c) computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to transform repeatedly said coordinates by applying to said coordinates a rotational wobble function W(s, t), said application of said rotational wobble function W(s, t) including: i) rotating said unit vector e1 by s radians about said unit vector e3 to produce a vector V; and ii) rotating said coordinates about said vector V by t radians to obtain thereby a transformed set of coordinates corresponding to a transformed base orientation of said three-dimensional object; d) to generate thereby a series of transformed coordinate sets corresponding to a series of transformed base orientations of said three-dimensional object; and e) computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to display said series of transformed coordinate sets as a smooth repetitive motion of two-dimensional representations of said transformed base orientations of said object wherein said object maintains a substantially constant orientation such that the total display of said two-dimensional representations provides said viewer a three-dimensional image of said three-dimensional object, wherein said sequential display does not include said coordinates corresponding to said base orientation.