Presenting information in a conference
One conferencing system allows conference participants to share all or a portion of the display seen on their computer screens. The conferees may be at sites removed from each other, or may view a recorded presentation or archived conference at different times. Conference participants are either “presenters” who can modify the display or “attendees” who cannot modify the display. An image may be captured of a selected region of a display image on a presenter computer, and data associated with the captured image may be transmitted to one or more attendee computers. The display of the transmitted data at the one or more attendee computers may be sequenced with respect to the presenter computer. These and other features apply to other data streams shared in the conference or in meetings where there is no shared-image data stream.
1. A method for presenting images in a conference system comprising:
receiving a selection of at least one region of a display image on a first computer, the selected region to be displayed on at least one second computer;
capturing an image within each selected region; and
transmitting data associated with the captured image to the at least one second computer for display by the at least one second computer, wherein the display of the transmitted data includes the selected at least one region on the first computer, and wherein the display of the transmitted data at the at least one second computer is sequenced with respect to the first computer.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising transcoding data associated with the captured image from a first image data form to a second image data form.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one region is a subset of the display image, the subset of the display image configured for a private conversation between two or more participants in a conference.
4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
receiving a selection of at least one region of the subset of the display image on the first computer, the selected region of the subset to be displayed in a private conversation with a participant at an at least one second computer;
capturing an image within the selected at least one region of the subset; and
transmitting data associated with the captured image to the participant at the at least one second computer for display in the private conversation by the at least one second computer, wherein the display of the transmitted data includes the selected at least one region of the subset on the first computer.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the transmitted data includes a real-time object stream.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising dividing the captured image into subregions.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the selection occurs in response to a selection occurring on a screen display.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the selection occurs in response to a selection occurring in a memory-generated representation of a screen display.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selection includes a plurality of regions of the display image.
10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing in a buffer the data associated with the captured image.
11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving a signal at the first computer after the at least one second computer receives data associated with the captured image.
12. A computer-readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a computing device to perform a method for presenting images in a conference system comprising:
receiving a selection of at least one region of a display image on a first computer, the selected region to be displayed on at least one second computer;
capturing an image within each selected region; and
transmitting data associated with the captured image to the at least one second computer for display by the at least one second computer, wherein the display of the transmitted data includes the selected at least one region on the first computer, and wherein the display of the transmitted data at the at least one second computer is sequenced with respect to the first computer.
13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12 , further comprising transcoding data associated with the captured image from a first image data form to a second image data form.
14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12 , further comprising dividing the captured image into subregions.
15. The computer-readable medium of claim 12 , wherein receiving the selection comprises receiving a selection of a plurality of regions of the display image.
16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the plurality of regions overlap.
17. The computer-readable medium of claim 12 , further comprising storing in a buffer the data associated with the captured image.
18. The computer-readable medium of claim 12 , further comprising receiving a signal at the first computer after the at least one second computer receives data associated with the captured image.
19. A system for presenting images in a video conference, comprising:
a conference server coupled to a network, wherein the conference server maintains sequence within the video conference and between conference participants;
a first participant computer coupled to the network, the first participant computer configured to:
receive a presenter selection of at least one region on a display of the first participant computer,
capture an image with the presenter selection, and
transmit data associated with the captured image within the presenter selection to the conference server;
a second participant computer coupled to the network, the second participant computer configured to:
receive the data associated with the captured image from the conference server, and
display the received data associated with the captured image, wherein the display of the received data includes the presenter selection of at least one region on the display of the first participant computer.
20. The system of claim 19 , wherein the data associated with the captured image within the presenter selection includes information related to position of a pointer in the presenter selection.
21. The system of claim 20 , wherein display the received data associated with the captured image further includes the display of the position of the pointer and an associated icon.
22. The system of claim 19 , wherein the conference server is further configured to negotiate and establish capabilities of participants in the video conference.
23. The system of claim 22 , wherein the capabilities are selected from the group consisting of bit-depth, bandwidth of connection between the participants and the conference server, processor speed of the conference participants, and available memory at the conference participants.
24. The system of claim 22 , wherein the capabilities of the conference participants may be modified by the conference server during the video conference.
25. The system of claim 24 , wherein the modification occurs automatically.
26. The system of claim 24 , wherein the modification occurs in response to a participant demand.
27. The system of claim 22 , wherein the conference server is further configured to distribute conferencing tasks to conference participants following the conference server having negotiated and established participant capabilities.
28. The system of claim 19 , wherein the conference server is further configured to route data through another conference server based on the demands or resources of the conference participants.
29. The system of claim 19 , wherein the conference server is further configured to route data through another conference server based on characteristics of the network.