Apparatus and method for topographic display of multichannel data

Claim 1

A system for displaying data comprising a source of multichannel input data signals derived from a matrix, signal processing electronic circuitry, and a video display for displaying a topographic map of display data, the topographic display comprising a display matrix of a plurality of display elements, the number of display elements being an order of magnitude greater than the number of channels of input data, the signals processing electronic circuitry comprising: a digital random access data memory for storing an input data signal from each input channel as an addressable data word; a pointer generator for generating a set of addresses of predetermined data words in the data memory for each element of the display matrix; data memory access circuitry for receiving the addresses generated by the pointer generator and accessing the predetermined data words; a coefficient generator for generaing a predetermined coefficient associated with each data word accessed by the access circuitry; and a display data generator for multiplying each accessed data word for each element of the display matrix with its associated coefficient and summing the resultant products to provide a display data signal for that element of the display.

Claim 2

A system for displaying data comprising a source of multichannel input data signals derived from a matrix, signal processing electronic circuitry, and a video display for displaying a topographic map of display data, the topographic display comprising a display matrix of a plurality of display elements, the number of display elements being an order of magnitude greater than the number of channels of input data, the signals processing electronic circuitry comprising: a digital random access data memory for storing an input data signal from each input channel as an addressable data word; a pointer generator for generating a set of addresses of predetermined data words in the data memory for each element of the display matrix; data memory access circuitry for receiving the addresses generated by the pointer generator and accessing the predetermined data words; a coefficient generator for generaing a predetermined coefficient associated with each data word accessed by the access circuitry; and a display data generator for multiplying each accessed data word for each element of the display matrix with its associated coefficient and summing the resultant products to provide a display data signal for that element of the display.

Claim 8

A system for displaying data in a display comprising successive frames of a plurality of display elements, the system comprising a source of multichannel input data signals derived from a matrix and a video display for providing a topographic display, the number of display elements within each frame of the display being an order of magnitude greater than the number of channels of input data, the system further comprising: an interpolator circuit for receiving the multichannel input data signals for generating interpolated output data signals, the interpolated output data signal Zp for each display element being generated by the interpolator circuit from three coefficients C1, C2 and C3 and three input data signals Z1, Z2 and Z3 displayed nearest to the generated output data signal, the interpolator circuit comprising coefficient generating means for generating the coefficients as a function of the X and Y matrix co-ordinates of those three input data signals as follows: Zp=(C1×Z1)+(C2×Z2)+(C3×Z3) C1=[Xp (Y2-Y3)+X2 (Y3-Yp)+X3 (Yp-Y2)]/DELTA C2=[X1 (Yp-Y3)+Xp (Y3-Y1)+X3 (Y1-Yp)]/DELTA C3=[X1 (Y2-Yp)+X2 (Yp-Y1)+Xp (Y1-Y2)]/DELTA DELTA=X1 (Y2-Y3)+X2 (Y3-Y1)+X3 (Y1-Y2).

Claim 9

A system for displaying data in a display comprising successive frames of a plurality of display elements, the system comprising a source of multichannel input data signals derived from a matrix and a video display for providing a topographic display, the number of display elements within each frame of the display being an order of magnitude greater than the number of channels of input data, the system further comprising: an interpolator circuit for receiving the multichannel input data signals for generating interpolated output data signals, the interpolated output data signal Zp for each display element being generated by the interpolator circuit from three coefficients C1, C2 and C3 and three input data signals Z1, Z2 and Z3 displayed nearest to the generated output data signal, the interpolator circuit comprising coefficient generating means for generating the coefficients as a function of the X and Y matrix co-ordinates of those three input data signals as follows: Zp=(C1×Z1)+(C2×Z2)+(C3×Z3) C1=[Xp (Y2-Y3)+X2 (Y3-Yp)+X3 (Yp-Y2)]/DELTA C2=[X1 (Yp-Y3)+Xp (Y3-Y1)+X3 (Y1-Yp)]/DELTA C3=[X1 (Y2-Yp)+X2 (Yp-Y1)+Xp (Y1-Y2)]/DELTA DELTA=X1 (Y2-Y3)+X2 (Y3-Y1)+X3 (Y1-Y2).

Claim 10

A method of displaying multichannel data at a display rate of at least one frame per second, the number of display elements within an expanded display matrix of each display frame being an order of magnitude greater than the number of channels of input data, the method comprising: precomputing, for a particular input matrix of multichannel input data signals and for each individual display element of the expanded display matrix, coefficients for use in generating the expanded display matrix of display signals, and storing the precomputed coefficients in an electronic coefficient memory; providing multichannel input data signals; storing the multichannel input data signals in an electronic data memory; for each display element of the expanded matrix, generating a set of data memory addresses of input data signals; accessing the input data signals at the generated addresses; electronically generating expanded display data for each display element of the expanded display matrix as a weighted combination of the accessed input data signals and corresponding coefficients stored in the coefficient memory, the expanded display matrix being generated at a rate at least as great as the display rate; and displaying the expanded display matrix.

Claim 11

A method of displaying multichannel data at a display rate of at least one frame per second, the number of display elements within an expanded display matrix of each display frame being an order of magnitude greater than the number of channels of input data, the method comprising: precomputing, for a particular input matrix of multichannel input data signals and for each individual display element of the expanded display matrix, coefficients for use in generating the expanded display matrix of display signals, and storing the precomputed coefficients in an electronic coefficient memory; providing multichannel input data signals; storing the multichannel input data signals in an electronic data memory; for each display element of the expanded matrix, generating a set of data memory addresses of input data signals; accessing the input data signals at the generated addresses; electronically generating expanded display data for each display element of the expanded display matrix as a weighted combination of the accessed input data signals and corresponding coefficients stored in the coefficient memory, the expanded display matrix being generated at a rate at least as great as the display rate; and displaying the expanded display matrix.