Method and apparatus for implementing an electronic white board
An electronic whiteboard may be used alone or in a virtual environment. The electronic whiteboard has a palate of tools that enable users to quickly draw shapes on the whiteboard. Rather than using perfectly drawn shapes, however, the palate renders shapes that are not quite perfect—rectangles that are not quite square, lines that are not quite straight—to prevent users from focusing on getting the drawings perfect. This lends an informal feeling to the resulting drawings to allow the drawings to more closely simulate how drawings would appear on a traditional whiteboard. Similarly, text is rendered using a scripted font rather than type font to make words on the whiteboard appear to be hand-written. The electronic whiteboard enables users to add notes and to vote on objects. Automatic vote counting and note management is provided. Use of the whiteboard may be recorded to enable sessions to be replayed and snapshots to be obtained.
1. A computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display configured to implement a method of enabling network-based collaboration, the method comprising the steps of:
providing an electronic whiteboard area;
enabling a user to add text to the electronic whiteboard area, the text being rendered using a scripted font;
passing the characters of the text through a randomizing function such that different instances of a given character will be slightly different when drawn in the electronic whiteboard area, such that the horizontal spacing between successive characters of the text varies, and such that the vertical spacing of characters within a line of text varies to cause at least some of the characters to be slightly above or below other characters within the line of text, the randomizing function maintaining the legibility of the text but causing the text to appear to be hand-drawn;
enabling a user of the electronic whiteboard to select a generally polygonal shaped object for inclusion in the electronic whiteboard area, the object appearing hand-drawn and being drawn using lines that are not perfectly straight, lines that vary in thickness, intensity, and color, and the object having corners that are not perfectly symmetrical;
passing the object through a randomizing function to create a randomized representation of the object, the randomizing function operating such that successive creations of the randomized representation of the same object will be similar, but drawn such that the successive iterations of the shapes are intentionally not perfectly aligned and such that the not perfectly straight lines are drawn using lines that vary in thickness, intensity, and color and are more or less curved/straight and such that the not perfectly symmetrical corners have slightly different angles so that multiple creations of the same object will cause randomized representations of the same object in the electronic whiteboard area to have different sizes and different shapes enabling the multiple creations of the same object to appear different from each other in the electronic whiteboard area; and
drawing the randomized representation of the object on the electronic whiteboard area; and
wherein the object is able to be moved, resized, rotated after being drawn on the electronic whiteboard area.
2. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 1 , the method further comprising the step of enabling a user to draw a path object on the electronic whiteboard area.
3. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 1 , the method further comprising the steps of:
enabling users to add notes to the electronic whiteboard area; and
automatically organizing notes added to the electronic whiteboard area.
4. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 3 , wherein the step of automatically organizing notes enables the notes to be grouped by at least one of subject, keyword, color, and author.
5. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 3 , wherein the step of automatically organizing notes enables the notes to be grouped hierarchically.
6. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 1 , the method further comprising the step of:
enabling users to add votes to the electronic whiteboard area via the computer-implemented electronic whiteboard.
7. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 6 , the method further comprising the step of automatically counting votes added to the electronic whiteboard area.
8. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 6 , wherein the step of enabling users to add votes enforces a rule which limits each user to only have one vote per user.
9. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 6 , wherein the step of enabling users to add votes enforces a rule which limits each user to only have a specified number of votes, the specified number being a number larger than one.
10. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 6 , wherein the step of enabling users to add votes enables users to add conditional votes.
11. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 1 , wherein the step of providing the electronic whiteboard area is implemented in a three dimensional virtual environment, and wherein the step of enabling is conditional upon an Avatar representing the user being positioned adjacent the electronic whiteboard area in the three dimensional virtual environment.
12. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 1 , wherein the step of providing the electronic whiteboard area is implemented in a three dimensional virtual environment, and wherein the electronic whiteboard area is implemented as multiple discrete surfaces within the three dimensional virtual environment.
13. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 12 , wherein the whiteboard area spans the multiple discrete surfaces so that the multiple discrete surfaces are treated as being part of a single logical whiteboard.
14. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 13 , wherein content may be moved on the single logical whiteboard from one of the multiple discrete surfaces to another of the multiple discrete surfaces within the three dimensional virtual environment.
15. The computer-implemented electronic whiteboard display of claim 6 , wherein the step of providing the electronic whiteboard area is implemented in a three dimensional virtual environment, wherein the votes are objects within the three dimensional virtual environment, and wherein a user votes within the three dimensional virtual environment by causing an avatar associated with the user to obtain a vote object and place the vote object on a surface associated with the electronic whiteboard area within the three dimensional virtual environment.