Method of real-time incremental zooming

1. A method of navigating a pointer on a graphical user interface (GUI), said method comprising the steps of:

scrolling an input device to locate the pointer corresponding to the input device on a point of interest within the GUI;

said point of interest being away from a center of the GUI;

depressing an actuating button associated with said input device on the point of interest;

obtaining a detailed view of the point of interest while centering the point of interest on said GUI; and

maintaining a position of the pointer on the point of interest.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the input device is one of graphic tablet, a tracking surface and a 3D pointing device.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detailed view of the point of interest is obtained while zooming in on the point of interest and simultaneously panning over the GUI.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detailed view is obtained in a series of intermediate zooming levels.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the pointer position is maintained over the point of interest at each zooming level.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the number of zooming levels is at least two.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

computing a linear distance between the center of the GUI and the point of interest;

drawing a virtual line representing the linear distance;

animating a movement of the pointer along the virtual line in a series of intermediate zooming levels.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the graphical user interface corresponds to a location information program.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the graphical user interface corresponds to a menu selection in a pay per view environment.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising storing information for each intermediate zooming level as a history.

11. A method of navigating a pointer on a graphical user interface (GUI), said method comprising the steps of:

navigating the pointer to a point of interest away from a center of the GUI;

actuating a mechanism for obtaining a magnified view of the point of interest;

computing a distance between the center of the GUI and a location of the point of interest;

generating a detailed view of the point of interest;

displaying the detailed view in the center of the GUI; and

animating a movement of the pointer with the point of interest from the position away from the center of the GUI to the center of the GUI.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the animation takes place concurrently with the generation and display of the detailed view.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the computed distance is represented on the GUI by a path.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the animation of the pointer movement occurs along said path.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the graphical user interface is a window representing a working area of a software application program executing on a computer.

16. The method of claim 11 , wherein the transition to the detailed view occurs over a plurality of intermediate zooming levels.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the pointer is located on the point of interest at each zooming level.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the transition occurs in a linear manner with each intermediate level representing a next zooming level.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the transition occurs in a combination of linear and non-linear levels.

20. A computer readable medium containing executable instructions, when executed in a processing system, cause the system to perform a method comprising:

navigating the pointer to a point of interest away from a center of the GUI;

actuating a mechanism for obtaining a magnified view of the point of interest;

computing a distance between the center of the GUI and a location of the point of interest;

generating a detailed view of the point of interest;

displaying the detailed view in the center of the GUI; and

animating a movement of the pointer from the position away from the center of the GUI to the center.