Bizarre Patents
Pillow with retractable umbrella
A pillow assembly having a supporting assembly and a retractable umbrella assembly that is easily transportable and allows a user to support his/her head while covering their face from sunlight.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8180597 | Utility network engineering and design rules in three-dimensional models of utility networks One embodiment of the invention provides a method for modeling a variety of three-dimensional (3D) utility networks constructed from individual parts. In one embodiment, users may construct a utility network by selecting and assembling a network of inter-connected p... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8155778 | System and method for fabricating insulated ductwork A system and method that may utilize one or more cutting tools to machine insulating sheet materials comprising one or more layers. In accordance with one aspect, a user may utilize a computer to input preferences and use software algorithms to determine an optimum ... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8154552 | Looping motion space registration for real-time character animation A method for generating a looping motion space for real-time character animation may include determining a plurality of motion clips to include in the looping motion space and determining a number of motion cycles performed by a character object depicted in each of ... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8144171 | Scale-dependent rendering of natural media styles A method for generating a scale-dependent rendering of natural media styles in a vector-based graphics application is disclosed. A vector-based graphics drawing may be resized such that certain scale-dependent parameters are scaled proportionately, while other scale... | 03/27/2012 |
| 8139068 | Three-dimensional animation of soft tissue of characters using controls associated with a surface mesh A face, as well as any other soft tissue of a character, can be animated much in the same way that a skeleton is animated by creating a soft tissue solver attached to the surface mesh. In particular, deformation objects are associated with regions of the surface mes... | 03/20/2012 |
| 8136045 | Multiple menus for use with a graphical user interface An approach for using multiple menus with a graphical user interface is disclosed. A multiple menu comprises a menu panel with two or more selection regions, each of which is associated with a base menu. A user requests the menu panel without selecting a menu object... | 03/13/2012 |
| 8134551 | Frontend for universal rendering framework Embodiments of the invention provide a renderer-agnostic method for representing materials independently from an underlying rendering engine. Advantageously, materials libraries may be extended with new materials for rendering with an existing rendering engine and i... | 03/13/2012 |
| 8132123 | 3D scene orientation indicator system with scene orientation change capability The present invention is a system that provides an orientation indicator graphical user interface element in a display view of a three-dimensional scene. The orientation indicator can be used to automatically change a view of the scene to a predetermined viewpoint. ... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8132115 | Dynamic properties for software objects A method, apparatus and article of manufacture provide for displaying per-instance dynamic properties of an object. A reference to an object instance having a dynamic property that is supplied at runtime for the object instance on a per-instance basis and is not sto... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8131757 | Taxonomy based indexing and searching A method, apparatus, and computer program product provide the ability to locate and display data in a taxonomy. A canonical taxonomy is defined (that is not exposed to a user that is searching for parts) by defining canonical categories and canonical attributes in a... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8131517 | Interconnected objects slope modification tool A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide the ability to update a slope of a run in a system in a computer drawing application. A system run (i.e., an interconnected series of objects) is selected in a computer drawing application. The objects in the i... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8131516 | Custom equations for the unfolding of sheet metal A computer implemented method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide the ability to utilize custom equations for the unfolding of sheet metal in a solid modeling application. A drawing model is obtained and defines a sheet metal object in the solid modeling ... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8130219 | Metadata for avatar generation in virtual environments A method of provisioning avatars comprises receiving at a first computer system associated with a first user, a metadata file relating to an avatar of a second user. In particular, the metadata file comprises data for use with an avatar generator process that is in ... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8125492 | Parameter wiring A method and apparatus for establishing relationships between attributes of objects is provided. According to one aspect, a set of first user input data that selects a first attribute that is associated with a first object is received. A set of second user input dat... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8120616 | Color sampler A method for selecting a desired color from a screen display using a color selection tool that may appear as an eyedropper. Rather than independently choosing pixels or a matrix of pixels, the user blends a color by selecting pixels using a mouse cursor. In response... | 02/21/2012 |
| 8107093 | Using geometry bounds to enable scale printing of virtual paper onto physical paper when using a printer with a differing printable area A computer-implemented graphics program that correctly adapts images being printed to the physical capabilities of a printer. A published virtual paper is scaled to a physical paper, taking into account the virtual paper's size, geometry bounds for an image from the... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8099260 | Analysis error detection for a CAD model Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for identifying an analytical representation of a plurality of physical elements in a computer aided design (CAD) model, the analytical representation comprising a plurality of analytical elements. one or m... | 01/17/2012 |
| 8081187 | Pencil strokes for vector based drawing elements Embodiments of the invention provide techniques for generating displays of vector drawing elements that have the appearance of being hand drawn using traditional media materials, such as a pencil. Multiple pencil strokes to be rendered on top of each other and the s... | 12/20/2011 |
| 8065123 | Systems and methods for performing quantity takeoff computations from computer aided design drawings One or more embodiments of the invention set forth methods for performing quantity takeoff computations from computer aided design (CAD) drawings. The user initiates the quantity takeoff of an instance of a drawing object by manually selecting one or more geometries... | 11/22/2011 |
| 8055482 | Integrating multiple design systems in a CAD system A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide the ability to integrate multiple engineering design systems in a computer aided design (CAD) system. A design generator is displayed and used to create an engineering design that has different worksheets. Each... | 11/08/2011 |
| 8046676 | Automatic view creation in a sheet set manager for a graphics program A Sheet Set Manager for a computer-implemented graphics program allows drawings to be organized logically as a Sheet Set comprising a collection of Sheets and Subsets of Sheets, wherein each Sheet comprises a drawing, layout or view. The Sheet Set Manager is a graph... | 10/25/2011 |
| 8044973 | Auto sorting of geometry based on graphic styles Embodiments of the invention provide an auto layer sorting feature for a computer aided drawing (CAD) application where drawing elements are sorted into different drawing layers based on the graphic style associated with each individual drawing element. Objects adde... | 10/25/2011 |
| 8044953 | System for interactive 3D navigation for proximal object inspection A system that transitions from freeform camera motion to surface following motion as a surface of an object is approached by clipping the vectors for closest point and look-at point. When the surface is reached and while following the surface the user can designate ... | 10/25/2011 |
| 8040358 | Graphical object generation and regeneration A method of propagating changes in a design model identifies a change to a changed element, creates steps to carry out the change, creates additional steps based on the change and on relationships between the changed element and other elements in the design model, a... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8028232 | Image processing using a hierarchy of data processing nodes A method of editing image data, wherein an image frame comprising a plurality of components is generated by processing a plurality of data processing nodes arranged in a hierarchical structure, said image frame is displayed to a user, said user manually selects one ... | 09/27/2011 |
| 8024745 | Communication mechanism between disconnected applications in a web browser A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide the ability to enable communication between disconnected applications in a computer system. A bridge object is created in a secondary application. Further, an interface for the bridge object enables communicati... | 09/20/2011 |
| 8024661 | Collaboration framework A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture enables users to collaborate on an actual stored drawing document across a network. A single document is stored on a server who establishes a collaboration session with multiple users that collaborate in real time and ... | 09/20/2011 |
| 8024382 | Dynamic manipulation of archive files A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide the ability to edit in-place a ZIP™ archive file. A file and a first file block (FFB) in a first block location are opened and modified. If the first block location can accommodate the modified FFB, the modif... | 09/20/2011 |
| 8024356 | Database-managed image processing A method, apparatus, system, and article of manufacture provide the ability to track the processing of image data in a collaborative environment. A dependency graph that represents an image composition is obtained. Metadata for each element of the dependency graph a... | 09/20/2011 |
| 8005650 | Enhanced flattening for cable and wiring harnesses in computer-aided design drawings Embodiments of the invention include a method for generating a two-dimensional (2D) flattened nailboard representation of a wiring harness in a three-dimensional (3D) computer-aided design (CAD) model. The nailboard representation invention may be used to provide a ... | 08/23/2011 |
| 7999827 | Method and system for generating dynamic blocks Tools and techniques for creating and editing a master block definition for a block, and manipulating a block instantiation of the block are described. User input can be received defining a block and a master block definition can be generated for the block. The bloc... | 08/16/2011 |
| 7995073 | System and method for anti-aliasing compound shape vector graphics Disclosed is a system and method for edge anti-aliasing of vector graphics. The system involves a video driver, which may include commercially available hardware, such as a graphics accelerator card. The method involves identifying the edges of a tessellated image r... | 08/09/2011 |
| 7990396 | Method for maintaining project standards in computer-aided design projects Embodiments of the invention provide a CAD application that allows users to establish, maintain, and synchronize project standards for style definitions and display settings across multiple drawing files that are part of a design project. The CAD application also al... | 08/02/2011 |
| 7986318 | Volume management system for volumetric displays The present invention is a system that manages a volumetric display using volume windows. The volume windows have the typical functions, such as minimize, resize, etc., which operate in a volume. When initiated by an application a volume window is assigned to the ap... | 07/26/2011 |
| 7978206 | Look-up table action A first block represents a two or three dimensional object in a Computer Aided Design (CAD) model, and has a visual presentation in a presentation of the CAD model based on a first plurality of property values denoted by a first label in a plurality of labels. User ... | 07/12/2011 |
| 7949690 | Project structure A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide the ability to define a project in a computer graphics program. A project file is defined with general information regarding the project. A folder structure for the project is defined where one or more project ... | 05/24/2011 |
| 7948488 | Shape preserving mappings to a surface A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide the ability to map a detail model to a destination while preserving the shape of the detail model. A destination surface (that is a smooth surface) is obtained. The destination surface is tessellated to generat... | 05/24/2011 |
| 7936353 | Restricting smoothing operations on a three-dimensional geometric primitive according to a surface normal Smoothing operations on a three-dimensional geometrical primitive, such as a mesh, are restricted by filtering the set of smoothing vectors to apply a user-selected restriction to the set of vectors. The user-selected restriction limits the set of smoothing vectors ... | 05/03/2011 |
| 7933858 | General framework for graphical simulations A system is described that treats a solver as an ordered sequence of steps involving the different objects that have to be simulated and relationships between them. Tasks and the order of the tasks are obtained from each object and relationship. The tasks are merged... | 04/26/2011 |
| 7930557 | Framework for embedding graphical processing unit programs in computer software A computer-implemented method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide a framework for embedding a graphical processing unit (GPU) program in computer software. A GPU program, that can be loaded and executed by a GPU, is obtained and encrypted to create an enc... | 04/19/2011 |
