User control of a hand-held device

• US 20060181510A1
• Filed: 02/17/2006
• Published: 08/17/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: University of Northumbria At Newcastle
• Original Assignee: University of Northumbria At Newcastle
• Inventors: Faith, Joe
• Application Number:
  US11/356,241
• Publication Number:
  US 20060181510A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/158
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1626 with a single-body enclosure integrating a flat display, e.g. Personal Digital Assistants [PDAs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1686 the I/O peripheral being an integrated camera
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2200/1637 Sensing arrangement for detection of housing movement or orientation, e.g. for controlling scrolling or cursor movement on the display of an handheld computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0317 in co-operation with a patterned surface, e.g. absolute position or relative movement detection for an optical mouse or pen positioned with respect to a coded surface
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/6811 based on the image signal

Abstract

A hand-held device (10), comprising a computing application of the hand-held device which responds to directional commands of a user; an image registering unit to register a series of images; an image processing unit (162) to derive motion data from the series of images corresponding to translational and/or rotational movement of the hand-held device in free space; and a direction control unit (164) to convert the motion data into a directional command and to supply the directional command to the computing application.

Claims

1. A hand-held device, comprising:

a computing application of the hand-held device which responds to directional commands of a user;

an image registering unit to register a series of images;

an image processing unit to derive motion data from the series of images corresponding to translational and/or rotational movement of the hand-held device in free space; and

a direction control unit to convert the motion data into a directional command and to supply the directional command to the computing application.

2. The hand-held device of claim 1, wherein the image registering unit is a camera fixedly carried by the hand-held device.

3. The hand-held device of claim 1, comprising a radio frequency communication unit, and an aerial for wireless communication with other devices.

4. The hand-held device of claim 3, wherein the communication unit performs wireless communication in a cellular telecommunications network.

5. The hand-held device of claim 1, wherein the hand-held device is a mobile telephone.

6. The hand-held device of claim 1, further comprising:

a display screen to provide a graphical user interface; and

wherein the computing application controls the graphical user interface of the display screen in response to the directional command of the direction control unit.

7. The hand-held device of claim 1, further comprising:

an audio output unit; and

wherein the computing application controls an audio signal of the audio output in response to the direction command of the direction control unit.

8. The hand-held device of claim 1, wherein the computing application controls an internal function of the hand-held device in response to the direction command of the direction control unit.

9. The hand-held device of claim 1, wherein the movement data represents a lateral X or Y transition of the hand-held device.

10. The hand-held device of claim 1, wherein the motion data represents a Z transition of the device toward or away from a background object.

11. The hand-held device of claim 1, wherein the motion data represents roll, pitch or yaw rotations of the device.

12. The hand-held device of claim 1, wherein the image processing unit derives the motion data by performing a motion detection algorithm on the image data.

13. The hand-held device of claim 1, wherein the image registering unit provides image data representing at least first and second images, and the image processing unit estimates an optic flow vector from the at least first and second images.

14. The hand-held device of claim 13, wherein image processing unit collates the first and second images by searching along a linear search path to determine motion data of a first direction, and searching along a second linear path to determine motion data of a second direction.

15. The hand-held device of claim 14, wherein the image processing unit searches along a linear array of light intensity detectors.

16. The hand-held device of claim 15, wherein the light intensity detectors each comprise a pixel in a row or column of 2D image data.

17. The hand-held device of claim 16, wherein the image processing unit smoothes the image data perpendicular to a major axis of the linear array.

18. The hand-held device of claim 17, wherein the smoothing is Gaussian smoothing.

19. The hand-held device of claim 15, wherein the image processing unit searches first or second derivatives of absolute light intensity values.

20. The hand-held device of claim 14, wherein the image processing unit searches each of a plurality of arrays located within a 2D image field to obtain movement data in two or more directions.

21. The hand-held device of claim 20, in which independent estimations of movement in each of a plurality of colour channels are combined.

22. A method of controlling a hand-held device, comprising:

registering a series of images taken from the hand-held device;

deriving motion data from the series of images corresponding to translational or rotational movement of the hand-held device in free space; and

converting the motion data into a direction command to control a computing application of the hand-held device.

23. The method of claim 22, in which the direction command is a command to scroll across an image on a display of the hand-held device, and/or a command to zoom in to and out of the image.

24. A computer readable storage medium having computer executable instructions stored thereon to cause a hand-held device to perform the method of claim 22.

25-26. -26. (canceled)