JP5255483B2 - Method, apparatus and program for facilitating object selection - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to object selection, and more particularly to a method, apparatus, and program for easily selecting a desired object from a plurality of objects displayed on a display screen.

  In tools such as word processors, WYSIWYG type HTML editors, graphic tools, etc., it is necessary to “select” an object in order to perform editing operations such as copying, cutting, pasting, deleting, and changing attribute values. The simplest way is to select with a mouse click. However, when a large number of objects are arranged and overlap each other as in a Web page, for example, a desired object may not be easily selected by clicking. Therefore, a method that can easily select a target object is desired even in such a case where objects are arranged in a complicated manner.

  Web art designer object stack (Non-patent Document 1) and Adobe (R) included in IBM (R) Homepage Builder (R) as a method for enabling selection of objects arranged in a complicated manner on the display screen A layer palette (Photo 2) of Photoshop (R) is known. The object stack and the layer palette are used to list items corresponding to all the objects arranged on the display screen in a specific place (object stack or layer palette) different from the editing screen. In the list display, each item is displayed in the order in which the corresponding objects overlap, and when a specific item is clicked, the corresponding object is selected. In addition to this, there is also known a technique in which object elements are displayed in a tree format and a corresponding object is selected on an editor by clicking an element on the tree.

Although all the above-described conventional techniques display all objects in a list, a technique for extracting and displaying only objects satisfying a predetermined condition is also known (Patent Document 1). In this known technique, an object through which a straight line connecting the viewpoint and the cursor position passes is extracted as a selection candidate object and displayed as a list in a list dialog.
JP 2002-366974 A “How to select multiple objects simultaneously in Web Art Designer” (http://www-06.ibm.com/jp/domino01/swhc/esupport.nsf/all/hpb0720) "Layer palette overview" (http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/10.0/help.html?content=WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-78e1.html)

  In the method of displaying all objects as a list, the place of the list display is a place different from the editing screen. Therefore, if the place is away from the selected object, a relatively long mouse movement distance is required. In addition, since the list display form does not indicate the actual display form of the objects on the editing screen, it is difficult to understand the positional relationship of the objects on the editing screen. Further, since all objects are displayed in a list, it may take time to select a desired object when the number of objects increases. The technique of Patent Document 1 may not require such effort, but since the selection candidate is determined by whether or not the straight line connecting the viewpoint and the cursor position passes through the object, the small object hidden behind the large object is small. If you want to add an object to the selection, you will need to click several times. Furthermore, with the method of Patent Document 1, an object that does not overlap the cursor position cannot be added to the option.

  Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to realize object selection that solves the above-described problems.

  According to the present invention, there is provided a method for facilitating selection of an object on a display screen of a computer, the step of identifying a point designated by a user on the display screen, and a display on the display screen. A step of extracting an object located in the vicinity of the point among a plurality of objects, and a step of evaluating an object extracted by the extracting step (hereinafter referred to as an extracted object) based on an attribute of each extracted object; Ranking the extracted objects according to their evaluation results, listing them in the vicinity of the points in a form that can be selected by the user, and placing the extracted objects with the highest evaluation results in a provisional selection state; A method of including is provided. Furthermore, an apparatus for realizing this method and a program for causing a computer to execute this method are also provided.

  Preferably, in the list display, each extracted object is simply displayed in the form of an icon, for example, and when the pointer is over the specific extracted object that is simply displayed, the substance of the simplified display object, that is, the display screen is displayed. The actual object being displayed is highlighted. When the user performs a confirming operation (for example, clicking a mouse button or pressing the Enter key) while the specific extracted object is highlighted, the selection of the specific extracted object is confirmed. If the user performs a confirmation operation when the object having the highest evaluation result is in the temporary selection state, the selection of the extracted object is confirmed.

  Preferably, the extracting step includes calculating the distance between a point specified by the user (hereinafter referred to as a specified point) and each object displayed on the display screen, and includes an object containing the specified point. An object whose distance is equal to or smaller than a predetermined threshold is extracted.

  The step of evaluating preferably evaluates the evaluation value of each extracted object based on at least one of the distance between the designated point and the characteristic portion of each extracted object, the type of the characteristic portion, and the image property of each extracted object. calculate. The characteristic portion is, for example, an opaque portion of each extracted object, and the evaluation value may be increased as the distance between the designated point and the opaque portion is shorter. The types of feature portions include text, foreground images, and background images, and the evaluation value of each extracted object may be calculated in the order in which they are specified in advance. The image property includes the transparency of each extracted object, and the evaluation value may be higher as the transparency is lower. Further, as an image property, focusing on the frequency component of each extracted object, the evaluation value may be made higher as there is a higher frequency component.

  The evaluating step calculates an evaluation value of each extracted object based on at least two of the distance between the designated point and the characteristic portion of each extracted object, the type of the characteristic portion, and the image property of each extracted object. Also good. In this case, it is preferable that the sum of values obtained by weighting the respective evaluation values be the evaluation value of each extracted object.

  Hereinafter, the best mode for carrying out the present invention (hereinafter simply referred to as an embodiment) will be described with reference to the drawings. However, the description of the embodiment is merely for illustrative purposes, It goes without saying that the invention is not limited to the configuration of the embodiment.

  One embodiment of an apparatus for facilitating selection of objects on a computer display screen in accordance with the present invention is shown in FIG. In this embodiment, an editor editing screen that handles a large number of objects is assumed as the display screen. The object selection support device 10 in FIG. 1 includes a storage unit 12 that stores position information and attribute information of a plurality of objects displayed on the display screen of the display device 234 (FIG. 9) in association with the object, and a user on the display screen. The point specifying unit 14 for specifying the point specified by the above, the object extracting unit 16 for extracting an object located in the vicinity of the specified point among the plurality of objects displayed on the display screen, and the object extracting unit 16 extract The evaluation unit 18 that evaluates the extracted objects (hereinafter referred to as “extracted objects”) based on the attributes of the respective extracted objects, and ranks the extracted objects according to the evaluation results, and the vicinity of the designated point in a form that can be selected by the user The extracted objects with the highest evaluation results And a selection unit 20 for the state.

  The storage unit 12 stores the position information and attribute information of each object in association with the object, for example, in the format shown in FIG. When the number of objects displayed on the screen is n, the storage unit 12 stores, for example, object IDs 1 to n, position information Li of the objects indicated by each ID, type Ti, and pixel information Pi (i = 1, 2, ... n) are stored. Among them, the type Ti and the pixel information Pi are referred to as attribute information here. The position information Li includes, for example, the coordinates of the upper left corner of the rectangle surrounding the corresponding object i, and the width (length in the x direction) and height (length in the y direction) of the rectangle. The type Ti is the type of the characteristic part of the corresponding object i and includes, for example, text, foreground image, background image, and the like. The characteristic portion is an opaque portion of the corresponding object, and details will be described later. The pixel information Pi includes an alpha value (opacity) of each pixel constituting the object.

  Next, the operation of the object selection support apparatus 10 shown in FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The flow in FIG. 3 starts when there is a user input (for example, mouse click) that specifies a specific point on the display screen. In the first step S 1, in response to such user input, the point specifying unit 14 specifies the designated point in the form of xy coordinates, and sends the coordinate value to the object extracting unit 16. In the next step S2, the object extraction unit 16 extracts an object located in the vicinity of the designated point based on the coordinate value of the designated point and the position information of each object stored in the storage unit 12. This extraction is performed, for example, by selecting an object whose distance from the specified point is a predetermined threshold value or less. The distance from the designated point may be the shortest distance between the designated point and each object, or may be the distance between the designated point and the center of gravity of each object. When the shortest distance is adopted, the distance between the designated point and the object including the designated point may be set to 0 for convenience.

  The object extraction processing in step S2 will be specifically described with reference to the screen example of FIG. FIG. 4 shows an example in which three objects 44, 46 and 48 are displayed on the display screen 40. The objects 44, 46, and 48 actually include content such as text and images, but such content is omitted in FIG. 4 in order to prevent the drawing from becoming complicated and difficult to see.

  In FIG. 4, when the user moves the cursor 42 to the illustrated point and clicks, the point specifying unit 14 detects the coordinates (step S1) and notifies the object extracting unit 16 of the coordinates. In response to this, the object extraction unit 16 reads the position information of the objects 44, 46, and 48 displayed on the display screen 40 from the storage unit 12, and coordinates values of four sides of the rectangle surrounding each object, that is, the right side and By comparing the x coordinate value of the left side and the y coordinate values of the upper side and the lower side with the coordinate values of the designated point, the distance d1 is calculated for the object 44 and the distance d2 is calculated for the object 48. In the case of the object 46, since the designated point is included in the object, the object extraction unit 16 sets the distance between the designated point and the object 46 to a default value (may be 0). Then, the object extraction unit 16 compares the calculated distance with a predetermined threshold TH, and extracts an object whose distance is equal to or less than TH. For example, if d2 <TH <d1 in the example of FIG. 4, the object extraction unit 16 extracts the objects 46 and 48. The threshold value may be a fixed value such as 20 mm, for example, but may be set freely by the user.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of calculating the shortest distance between the designated point and each object. FIG. 5 shows the case where the distance between the designated point and the center of gravity of each object is calculated. The object extraction unit 16 calculates distances d3, d4, and d5 between the specified point and the center of gravity 54 of the object 44, the center of gravity 56 of the object 46, and the center of gravity 58 of the object 48, and compares them with the threshold value TH. Extract objects. For example, if d4 <TH <d5 <d3, the object extraction unit 16 extracts only the object 46. Since the method of calculating the center of gravity itself is well known, its details are omitted.

  Returning to FIG. 3, when the object extraction unit 16 extracts an object in step S <b> 2, it notifies the evaluation unit 18 of the ID of the extracted object together with the coordinate value of the designated point. In the next step S3, the evaluation unit 18 reads the attribute information of the extracted object from the storage unit 12 using the ID, and evaluates the extracted object. This attribute information is type and pixel information in the example of FIG. In the present embodiment, the evaluation unit 18 evaluates each extracted object based on at least one of the distance between the designated point and the characteristic part of each extracted object, the type of the characteristic part, and the image property of each extracted object. . Next, these evaluation processes will be specifically described.

  First, the evaluation unit 18 specifies an opaque portion of each extracted object as a feature portion by examining the alpha value of each pixel included in the pixel information among the attribute information read from the storage unit 12. This can be implemented, for example, by extracting a pixel having an alpha value greater than or equal to a predetermined value (for example, 128 or more) out of alpha values from 0 to 255 as an opaque pixel. Next, the evaluation unit 18 checks whether or not the designated point is included in the opaque portion composed of the extracted opaque pixels. If it is included, the distance between the designated point and the opaque portion is set to 0. . If the designated point is not included in the opaque portion, the opaque pixel closest to the designated point is found, and the distance between them is calculated as the shortest distance between the designated point and the opaque portion. The distance may be a length such as mm or cm, or may be represented by the number of pixels.

  The evaluation unit 18 calculates the shortest distance between the designated point and the opaque part for each extracted object, and assigns an evaluation value to each extracted object according to the calculation result. In this case, the evaluation value is set higher as the distance is shorter. This is because it is considered that the closer the feature part of an object including text and images is to the designated point, the higher the possibility that the user will select the object.

  Since the evaluation value is used for ordering of the extracted objects, it is only necessary to know the relative value of each extracted object. Therefore, if only the above shortest distance is used as an evaluation criterion, for example, (1 / calculated distance) may be used as an evaluation value. In this case, division is not possible if the calculated distance is 0. Therefore, in order to select the corresponding extracted object as the highest priority object, a value larger than the evaluation value of the other extracted objects may be appropriately assigned.

  The evaluation unit 18 can also assign an evaluation value to each extracted object according to the type of the characteristic part of the extracted object. In this embodiment, evaluation values are assigned in the order of text → foreground image → background image, but this priority may be set by the user on the menu screen of the editor. As the evaluation value, for example, 1 can be assigned to text, and thereafter, a value that decreases by 0.2 can be assigned in the order of foreground image, background image, and the like.

  Furthermore, the evaluation unit 18 may assign an evaluation value to each extracted object according to the image property of the extracted object. As the image property, the transparency and frequency component of each extracted object can be considered.

  It is considered that the transparency of the extracted object affects the user's vision and also affects the editing operation. For example, when the user selects an object, it can be assumed that the selection operation tends to be performed in the vicinity of a part of the object that is less transparent. Then, by evaluating the transparency of the extracted object in the vicinity of the specified point, the user's intention of the selection operation can be drawn. For simplification, an average value of the transparency of pixels constituting the extraction object may be adopted as the transparency of the extraction object. The evaluation unit 18 assigns a higher evaluation value as the transparency is lower. The evaluation value regarding transparency may be, for example, (alpha value / 255).

  The frequency component may be analyzed, for example, by applying a discrete cosine transform (DCT) on the 8 × 8 pixel block closest to the specified point. The evaluation unit 18 assigns a higher evaluation value to the higher frequency component. This is because, for example, images (including high-frequency components) rich in fine changes such as photographs and texts are compared to images (consisting only of low-frequency components) in which a single color or color changes gently. Based on the concept of emphasis. When the user tries to select an object, assuming that there is a tendency to perform a selection operation in the vicinity of a characteristic part that is more varied in the object, the evaluation value of the high frequency component can be increased. The user's intention can be drawn. The evaluation value related to the frequency component may be, for example, (position of highest frequency component / 64).

  When the evaluation unit 18 uses only the distance between the designated point and the feature portion as an evaluation criterion, the evaluation unit 18 orders the extracted objects in order from the shortest distance without calculating the evaluation value, and sends the result to the selection process 20. Just be fine. Further, in the case of evaluating only by the type of the characteristic part, the extracted objects may be ordered in the order described above without similarly calculating the evaluation value, and the result may be sent to the selection processing unit 20. The same applies when considering only the image properties.

However, when at least two of the distance between the designated point and the feature part, the type of the feature part, and the image property of the extracted object are used as evaluation criteria, the following is preferable. First, the evaluation unit 18 normalizes the evaluation value so that it falls within the range of 0 to 1 for each distance, each type, and each image property. Then, when the evaluation value for each distance is D, the evaluation value for each type is T, and the evaluation value for each image property is I, the comprehensive evaluation value EV is calculated according to the following equation.
EV = αD + βT + γI (1)

  In the above equation, α, β, and γ are weighting coefficients that satisfy α + β + γ = 1, and can be appropriately determined depending on how much evaluation criteria are regarded as important.

  Further, when the editing target is a Web page, the evaluation unit 18 may add an evaluation using an HTML tag because an HTML tag is associated with each object. For example, the <BODY> tag has the entire Web page as an area, and often has no special characteristics. Therefore, the tag evaluation may be the lowest evaluation. Moreover, since the <P> tag has text, the evaluation may be increased. When an HTML tag is used as an evaluation criterion, it is necessary to perform normalization and weighting as described above.

  The evaluation unit 18 sends the evaluation value of each extracted object to the selection processing unit 20. In step S4, the selection processing unit 20 puts the extracted object having the highest evaluation value into a temporary selection state, and further displays the extracted objects in a list in a simplified format in the order of evaluation values in step S5. The provisional selection state is a state in which the object is temporarily selected as an object to be edited, and the selection is confirmed and editing of the object is possible only after a confirmation operation such as a mouse click by the user. .

  An example of a processing result by the selection processing unit 20 is shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, the selection processing unit 20 displays a list view 60 in the vicinity of the designated point indicated by the cursor 42, and briefly displays the extracted objects in the order of evaluation values. FIG. 6 shows an example in which objects 46 and 48 are extracted and displayed in the list view 60 as simplified display objects 46 ′ and 48 ′. In the example of FIG. 6, the evaluation value is higher as the simplified display object is displayed in the upper side in the list view 60. The simplified display objects 46 ′ and 48 ′ may be a part of the corresponding objects 46 and 48, or may be configured by an icon and an object name corresponding to the type of the object, like a layer palette.

  Further, the selection processing unit 20 highlights the entity of the extracted object having the highest evaluation value (the object 46 in the example of FIG. 6) in a temporarily selected state. In the example of FIG. 6, the rectangle surrounding the object 46 is highlighted with a thick line for simplicity, but the highlighted form is not limited to this, and for example, the entire object may be displayed with high brightness.

  FIG. 6 shows only two extracted objects for the sake of simplicity, but when the number of extracted objects increases, objects with low evaluation values may be collectively displayed as one group and omitted. An example is shown in FIG. FIG. 8 shows an example in which an object having an evaluation value of third or lower is displayed in the list view 60 as one abbreviated display block 80. When the user selects the abbreviated display block 80 with, for example, a mouse click, the selection processing unit 20 can simply display the extracted object that has been abbreviated in the form of a drop-down menu. Instead of the drop-down menu format, the extracted objects that have been omitted may be overwritten and displayed in the list view 60 in the same form as the simplified display objects 46 ′ and 48 ′. In that case, it is desirable to set a button for returning to the original list view at an appropriate place.

  The selection processing unit 20 then enters the reselection mode (step S6) and waits for a confirmation operation by the user (step S7). In the state of FIG. 6, that is, when the highest rated object 46 is in the temporary selection state, when the user executes a confirmation operation by clicking, for example, a mouse button, the selection processing unit 20 responds to the user input and the object 46. Is determined as the selected object (step S8). In addition, when the user moves the cursor 42 over the simplified display object 48 ′ in the state of FIG. 6, the selection processing unit 20 responds to the entity of the simplified display object 48 ′ as shown in FIG. That is, the corresponding object 48 is highlighted to indicate that the object 48 is in a temporarily selected state. When the user clicks the mouse button in this state, the selection processing unit 20 determines the object 48 as the selected object in response to the user input (step S8). If the user's confirmation operation is not performed even after a predetermined time has elapsed, the selection of the temporarily selected object at that time may be confirmed. When the user clicks on an object other than the object displayed in the list view 60, the process of FIG. 3 is executed from the beginning.

  FIG. 9 shows a configuration example of a data processing system that can be implemented as the object selection support apparatus 10 of FIG. Data processing system 200 may be a symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) with multiple processors 202 and 204 connected to system bus 206, or may be a single processor system. Also connected to the system bus 206 is a memory controller / cache 208, which provides an interface to the local memory 209. An I / O bus bridge 210 is connected to the system bus 206 and provides an interface to the I / O bus 212. The memory controller / cache 206 and the I / O bus bridge 210 may be integrated together as shown.

  A PCI bus bridge 214 connected to the I / O bus 212 provides an interface to the PCI local bus 216. Communication devices such as a modem 218 and a network adapter 220, and other peripheral devices can be connected to the PCI local bus. A typical PCI bus implementation includes four PCI expansion slots or expansion connectors.

  Additional PCI bus bridges 222 and 224 provide an interface for additional PCI local buses 226 and 228, thereby allowing additional peripheral devices to be handled. As shown, a memory mapped graphics adapter 230 and a hard disk drive 232 can also be connected to the I / O local bus 212. A display device 234 such as a liquid crystal display is connected to the graphics adapter 230.

  The operating system runs on the processors 202 and 204 and controls various components in the data processing system 200 of FIG. The operating system may be a commercially available operating system such as Windows® XP available from Microsoft Corporation. The program according to the present invention that operates on the operating system is stored in a storage device such as a hard disk drive 232 and is loaded into the memory 209 at the time of execution, and the data processing system 200 is pointed to the point specifying unit 14. , Function as the object extraction unit 16, the evaluation unit 18, and the selection processing unit 20. The storage unit 12 can be implemented by the local memory 209.

  Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the hardware of FIG. 9 may vary depending on the implementation. Other internal hardware and peripheral devices such as a flash ROM (or equivalent non-volatile memory) and an optical disk drive can be used in addition to or instead of the hardware shown in FIG.

  Although the present invention has been described in the context of a fully functional data processing system, the process of the present invention can be distributed in the form of a computer-readable medium of instructions and in various forms, and the present invention is practical for carrying out the distribution. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the present invention applies equally regardless of the particular type of signal bearing medium used. Examples of computer readable media use recordable type media such as flexible disk, hard disk drive, RAM, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and digital and analog communication links, radio frequency and lightwave transmission Including transmission type media such as wired or wireless communication links. The computer readable medium may take the form of an encoded format that is decoded for actual use in a particular data processing system.

  The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, and is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to practitioners skilled in this art. The embodiments are best described for the principles and practical applications of the present invention and are selected so that one skilled in the art can understand the present invention for various embodiments having various modifications suitable for the particular use envisioned. Was explained.

The block diagram which shows the structural example of the object selection assistance apparatus according to this invention. The figure which shows an example of the object data memorize | stored in the memory | storage part of the object selection assistance apparatus shown in FIG. The flowchart which shows operation | movement of the object selection assistance apparatus shown in FIG. The figure which shows an example of the object selection by this invention. The figure which shows an example of the object extraction process by the object extraction part of the object selection assistance apparatus shown in FIG. The figure which shows the other example of the object extraction process by the object extraction part of the object selection assistance apparatus shown in FIG. The figure which shows an example of the processing result by the selection process part of the object selection assistance apparatus shown in FIG. The figure which shows the other example of the processing result by the selection process part of the object selection assistance apparatus shown in FIG. The figure which shows the example which abbreviate-displays the object with a low evaluation value as one group in a list view. The block diagram which shows the structural example of the data processing system which can be implemented as an object selection assistance apparatus according to this invention.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Object selection support apparatus 12 Memory | storage part 14 Point identification part 16 Object extraction part 18 Evaluation part 20 Selection process part 40 Display screen 42 Cursor 44, 46, 48 Object 60 List view

Claims (13)

A method for facilitating selection of an object on a computer display screen, comprising:
Identifying a point designated by the user on the display screen;
Extracting an object located in the vicinity of the point among a plurality of objects displayed on the display screen;
Evaluating the objects extracted by the extracting step (hereinafter, extracted objects) based on the attributes of the extracted objects;
A step of the extraction object ranks according to their evaluation results, together with the list in the vicinity of the point form can be selected by the user and the high extraction object most evaluation results in the temporary selection state,
Only including,
The evaluating step calculates an evaluation value of each extracted object based on at least two of a distance between the point and a characteristic portion of each extracted object, a type of the characteristic portion, and an image property of the extracted object. Then, the sum of values obtained by weighting the respective evaluation values is used as the evaluation value of each extracted object .   The method according to claim 1, wherein the list display is a simplified display of each extracted object.   The method according to claim 2, further comprising: highlighting an entity of the specific extracted object when the pointer is over the specific extracted object displayed in a simplified manner on the display screen.   The method according to claim 3, further comprising the step of confirming selection of the specific extraction object when a confirmation operation is performed by a user in a state where an entity of the specific extraction object is highlighted.   The method according to claim 4, further comprising the step of confirming selection of the extracted object having the highest evaluation result when a determination operation is performed by a user when the object having the highest evaluation result is in a temporary selection state. The extracting step includes:
Calculating a distance between the point and each object displayed on the display screen;
The method according to claim 1, further comprising: extracting an object including the object including the point and having the distance equal to or less than a predetermined threshold. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the characteristic portion is an opaque portion of each extracted object, and the evaluation value increases as the distance from the opaque portion decreases. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the type of the characteristic part includes text, a foreground image, and a background image, and the evaluation value of each extracted object is calculated according to a predetermined order. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the image property includes transparency of each extracted object, and the evaluation value is higher as the transparency is lower. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the image property includes a frequency component of each extracted object, and the evaluation value is higher as there is a higher frequency component. Storing the position information and attribute information of the plurality of objects displayed on the display screen;
The specifying step specifies a coordinate value of the designated point;
The step of extracting calculates a distance between the point and each object displayed on the display screen from the coordinate value and the position information,
The evaluating step evaluates each extracted object from the attribute information.
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 10. An apparatus for facilitating selection of an object on a computer display screen,
A point identifying unit for identifying a point designated by the user on the display screen;
An object extraction unit that extracts an object located in the vicinity of the point among a plurality of objects displayed on the display screen;
An evaluation unit that evaluates an object extracted by the object extraction unit (hereinafter referred to as an extraction object) based on an attribute of each extraction object;
The extracted object ranks according to their evaluation results, together with the list in the vicinity of the point form can be selected by the user, a selection unit for high extraction object most evaluation results in the temporary selection state ,
Only including,
The evaluation unit calculates an evaluation value of each extracted object based on at least two of a distance between the point and a characteristic part of each extracted object, a type of the characteristic part, and an image property of the extracted object. The sum of values obtained by weighting the respective evaluation values is used as the evaluation value of each extracted object . A program for facilitating selection of an object on a display screen of a computer, the step of identifying a point designated by a user on the display screen to the computer;
Extracting an object located in the vicinity of the point among a plurality of objects displayed on the display screen;
Evaluating an object extracted by the object extraction unit (hereinafter referred to as an extracted object) based on an attribute of each extracted object;
A step of the extraction object ranks according to their evaluation results, together with the list in the vicinity of the point form can be selected by the user and the high extraction object most evaluation results in the temporary selection state,
Was executed,
The evaluating step calculates an evaluation value of each extracted object based on at least two of a distance between the point and a characteristic portion of each extracted object, a type of the characteristic portion, and an image property of the extracted object. And the program which makes the sum total of the value which weighted each evaluation value the evaluation value of each extraction object .

Images