Systems and Methods for Generating Enhanced Screenshots

Abstract

Systems and methods for generating and providing enhanced screenshots may include executing instructions stored in memory to evaluate at least a portion of a viewing frustum generated by the instructions to determine one or more objects included therein, obtain metadata associated with the one or more objects, and generate at least one enhanced screenshot indicative of the at least a portion of the viewing frustum by associating the metadata of each of the one or more objects with a location of each of the one or more objects within the at least one enhanced screenshot to create hotspots indicative of each of the one or more objects such that selection at least one hotspot by a computing system causes at least a portion of the metadata associated with the at least one hotspot to be displayed on a display device of a computing system.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for generating enhanced screenshots, comprising:
 executing instructions stored in memory to:
 evaluate at least a portion of a viewing frustum generated by the instructions to determine one or more objects included therein; 
 obtain metadata associated with the one or more objects; 
 generate at least one enhanced screenshot indicative of the at least a portion of the viewing frustum by associating the metadata of each of the one or more objects with a location of each of the one or more objects within the at least one enhanced screenshot to create hotspots indicative of each of the one or more objects such that selection at least one hotspot by a computing system causes at least a portion of the metadata associated with the at least one hotspot to be displayed on a display device of a computing system; and 
 provide the at least one enhanced screenshot to the display device of the computing system. 
   
     
     
         2 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the metadata includes at least one of static metadata and run time metadata. 
     
     
         3 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein obtain includes:
 determine coordinates for each of the one or more objects indicative of a location of each of the one or more objects within a program environment generated by execution of the instructions; and   locate metadata associated with each of the one or more objects based upon the determined coordinates of each of the one or more objects.   
     
     
         4 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further adapted to append the metadata to each of the one or more objects as one or more metadata tags. 
     
     
         5 . The method according to  claim 4 , wherein the instructions are further adapted to associate two or more enhanced screenshots together that each include at least one object having at least one metadata tag in common. 
     
     
         6 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are adapted to be executed automatically at predetermined intervals of time. 
     
     
         7 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are adapted to be executed upon receiving a request to obtain at least one enhanced screenshot from the computing system. 
     
     
         8 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are adapted to be executed upon an occurrence of at least one condition. 
     
     
         9 . The method according to  claim 8 , wherein the at least one condition includes at least one of a threshold amount of objects located within the viewing frustum and a particular type of object located within the viewing frustum. 
     
     
         10 . The method according to  claim 8 , wherein the at least one enhanced screenshot includes data indicative of the at least one condition that predicated the execution of the instructions, the data indicative of the at least one condition being appended as metadata to the at least one enhanced screenshot. 
     
     
         11 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further adapted to provide, to the computing system, the at least one enhanced screenshot in an extensible markup language format document. 
     
     
         12 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further adapted to provide, to the computing system, the at least one enhanced screenshot along with a current view of the program environment. 
     
     
         13 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the metadata includes comparative metadata indicative of a comparison of the metadata of a first object located within the viewing frustum and the metadata of one or more objects also located within the viewing frustum when the at least one enhanced screenshot was generated. 
     
     
         14 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further adapted to provide to the computing system the at least one enhanced screenshot in a format adapted to allow sharing the at least one enhanced screenshot via a social network. 
     
     
         15 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein a graphics engine of the computing system is adapted to generate a view from at least a portion of the viewing frustum. 
     
     
         16 . The method according to  claim 15 , wherein the at least one enhanced screenshot includes two or more enhanced screenshots captured from two or more points of view relative to the viewing frustum. 
     
     
         17 . The method according to  claim 15 , wherein generate includes:
 capture an image file indicative of the at least a portion of the view;   map each of the one or more objects determined to be within the at least a portion of the view to one or more pixels of the captured image file to establish a hotspot; and   associate the metadata of each of the one or more objects with a corresponding hotspot on the captured image file such that selection of the hotspots cause at least a portion of the metadata corresponding to the hotspots to be displayed in a popup window located proximate the hotspots.   
     
     
         18 . The method according to  claim 17 , wherein map includes determining an area corresponding to a geometrical configuration of the at least one of the one or more objects. 
     
     
         19 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein generate includes generating a plurality of enhanced screenshots that are arranged as an enhanced video, the at least one enhanced video adapted to provide at least a portion of the metadata associated with at least one object upon receiving input indicative of a selection of the at least one object by the computing system. 
     
     
         20 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a processor to perform a method for generating a viewing frustum that includes one or more objects, the program further including an enhanced screenshot engine adapted to:
 evaluate at least a portion of the viewing frustum to determine one or more objects included within the viewing frustum;   obtain metadata associated with at least one of the one or more objects;   generate at least one enhanced screenshot indicative of the at least a portion of the viewing frustum by associating the metadata of each of the one or more objects with a location of each of the one or more objects within the at least one enhanced screenshot to create hotspots indicative of each of the one or more objects such that selection at least one hotspot by a computing system causes at least a portion of the metadata associated with the at least one hotspot to be displayed on a display device of a computing system; and   provide the at least one enhanced screenshot to the computing system for display on the display device of the computing system.   
     
     
         21 . A method for providing an award in response to a computing system obtaining one or more enhanced screenshots during execution of instructions that generate a viewing frustum that includes one or more objects, comprising:
 comparing metadata of at least one of the one or more objects included in one or more enhanced screenshots obtained by the computing system to an established award criteria, the award criteria including information indicative of metadata included in one or more enhanced screenshots that when obtained allow at least one award to be provided to the computing system; and   providing an award to the computing system upon the computing system obtaining one or more enhanced screenshots having metadata that correspond to the award criteria.   
     
     
         22 . The method according to  claim 21 , further comprising establishing the award criteria. 
     
     
         23 . The method according to  claim 21 , further comprising defining the award.