Near touch interaction

• US 10,061,442 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2017
• Issued: 08/28/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/10/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Golden Edge Holding Corporation
• Original Assignee: Edge Technologies, Inc
• Inventors: El Dokor, Tarek
• Primary Examiner(s): Xiao, Ke
• Assistant Examiner(s): Imperial, Jed-Justin
• Application Number:
  US15/594,589
• Publication Number:
  US 20170249053A1
• Time in Patent Office: 472 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04104 Multi-touch detection in digitiser, i.e. details about the simultaneous detection of a plurality of touching locations, e.g. multiple fingers or pen and finger
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04108 Touchless 2D- digitiser, i.e. digitiser detecting the X/Y position of the input means, finger or stylus, also when it does not touch, but is proximate to the digitiser's interaction surface without distance measurement in the Z direction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0421 by interrupting or reflecting a light beam, e.g. optical touch-screen
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/04 involving 3D image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10021 Stereoscopic video; Stereoscopic image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/521 from laser ranging, e.g. using interferometry; from the projection of structured light
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/593 from stereo images

Abstract

A near-touch interface is provided that utilizes stereo cameras and a series of targeted structured light tessellations, emanating from the screen as a light source and incident on objects in the field-of-view. After radial distortion from a series of wide-angle lenses is mitigated, a surface-based spatio-temporal stereo algorithm is utilized to estimate initial depth values. Once these values are calculated, a subsequent refinement step may be applied in which light source tessellations are used to flash a structure onto targeted components of the scene, where initial near-interaction disparity values have been calculated. The combination of a spherical stereo algorithm, and smoothing with structured light source tessellations, provides for a very reliable and fast near-field depth engine, and resolves issues that are associated with depth estimates for embedded solutions of this approach.

Claims

1. A method for determining near touch interaction by a user object, comprising the steps of:

displaying on a display one or more objects;

acquiring one or more images of the user object by one or more pairs of stereo cameras located adjacent to the display;

dewarping the one or more acquired images;

computing a disparity based upon the dewarped images; and

identifying one or more target regions of the display adjacent to one or more corresponding portions of the disparity that may benefit from refinement, and displaying one or more screen tessellations therein using the light sources that illuminate the display;

wherein the tessellations are interleaved with the actual data, allowing for the display of the structured light without the light being perceived by the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more acquired images comprise a left and right image acquired at a substantially simultaneous time.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the displaying of screen tessellations further comprises the step of flashing one or more structured light sequences on a targeted portion of the user object positioned adjacent to the display.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the structured light is a targeted structured light.

5. The method of claim 4, where in the structured light is displayed on only one or more predetermined portions of the display.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the user object is a finger of the user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more patterns of the screen tessellations are produced vary in one or more of size, location, orientation, or frequency, depending on the size and depth of the targeted region.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more pairs of stereo cameras cover both the visible range and infrared ranges.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein if it is determined that the light source is strong enough, the infrared sensors are disregarded.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more pairs of stereo cameras are dual band, covering substantially both of the visible range and infrared range.