Active embedded interaction coding

• US 20060165290A1
• Filed: 03/22/2006
• Published: 07/27/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wang, Qiang, Li, Yue, Wang, Jian, Zhang, Chunhui
• Granted Patent: US 7,502,508 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/182
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0321 by optically sensing the absolute position with respect to a regularly patterned surface forming a passive digitiser, e.g. pen optically detecting position indicative tags printed on a paper sheet constructional details of pen-shaped pointing devices G06F3/03545, G06F3/03542, G06F3/037
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03545 Pens or stylus
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/06037 multi-dimensional coding
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/142 using hand-held instruments; Constructional details of the instruments

Abstract

A system and method is described for providing an encoding scheme for a bit stream and displaying or printing the encoded bit stream. Using the encoded bit stream, a pen with a camera may capture an image of a portion of the encoded bit stream. The captured image may then be decoded to provide an indication of the location of the image in relation to the encoded bit stream. The encoding scheme includes information regarding orientation, thus making decoding easier.

Claims

1. A process of associating annotations with a document having a document identifier comprising steps of:

printing an encoded version of a document identifier with a printed version of a document;

capturing the encoded version of the document identifier with a camera associated with a pen;

decoding the encoded version of the document identifier; and

associating annotations created by the pen with the document identified by the document identifier.

2. The process of claim 1, wherein the document identifier is printed on a portion of the printed version of the document.

3. The process of claim 1, wherein the step of printing includes steps of:

printing a first data region represented by a row of dark images associated with at least another row of light images; and

printing a second data region represented by a column of dark images associated with at least another column of light images,

wherein the first data region represents a first bit of a data stream,

wherein the second data region represents a second bit of the data stream.

4. The process of claim 3, wherein the first and second data regions have a horizontal and vertical orientation.

5. The process of claim 3, wherein the first and second data regions have a non-horizontal and vertical orientation.

6. The process of claim 3, wherein the first and second data regions have regularly alternating dark and light portions.

7. The process of claim 3, wherein the first and second data regions have irregularly alternating dark and light portions.

8. The process of claim 3, wherein the first and second data regions have alternating dark and light portions that alternate over at least two rows or columns.

9. A process of associating annotations with a document having a document identifier comprising steps of:

generating an encoded version of a document identifier identifying a document;

associating the encoded version of the document identifier with a version of the document;

capturing the encoded version of the document identifier with a camera associated with a pen;

decoding the encoded version of the document identifier; and

associating annotations created by the pen with the document associated with the document identifier.

10. The process of claim 9, wherein the step of associating includes printing the encoded version on a printed version of the document.

11. The process of claim 9, wherein the step of associating includes displaying the encoded version on a displayed version of the document.

12. The process of claim 9, further comprising a step of annotating the document with the pen.

13. The process of claim 12, wherein the step of associating annotations includes storing an electronic version of the document with the annotations created by the pen.

14. The process of claim 9, wherein the step of decoding includes:

determining a rotation of the encoded version of the document identifier from a predefined grid orientation; and

determining a rotation of a pattern in the encoded version of the document identifier.

15. The process of claim 9, wherein the step of decoding includes:

determining a rotation of the encoded version of the document identifier to be aligned with a predefined grid orientation;

retrieving a pattern from the encoded version of the document identifier based on the step of determining the rotation;

determining an orientation of the pattern;

rotating the pattern based on the step of determining the orientation; and

decoding the rotated pattern to extract a data stream.

16. A system for associating annotations with a document having a document identifier, the system comprising:

a first component configured to receive a first image and annotation images from a camera in a pen, the first image including a portion of an encoded version of a document identifier and a corresponding document, the annotation images including annotations created by the pen;

a second component configured to decode the encoded version of the document identifier; and

a third component configured to associate the annotation images with the corresponding document.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the first, second, and third components may be implemented by software.

18. The system of claim 16, further comprising the pen configured to capture images with the camera and to transmit the images to the first component.

19. The system of claim 16, further comprising a fourth component configured to store an electronic version of the corresponding document with data corresponding to the annotated images.

20. The system of claim 19, a fifth component configured to output the encoded version of the document identifier with a version of the corresponding document.