VIRTUAL POINTER

• US 20080170033A1
• Filed: 01/15/2007
• Published: 07/17/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Schultz, Mark D.
• Application Number:
  US11/623,216
• Publication Number:
  US 20080170033A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/157
• 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

Abstract

A method, system, and device are provided for displaying a graphical pointer at a location on a display area. The method includes displaying, with an information processing system, a display image at a display area. The pointing device captures an image corresponding to at least a portion of the display image at the display area in a field of view of the pointing device. A location within the display image corresponding to a location in the at least the portion of the display image in the field of view of the pointing device is determined. Optionally, a virtual pointer is caused to be displayed at the determined location within the display image.

Claims

1. A method for displaying a graphical pointer at a location on a display area, the method comprising:

displaying, with an information processing system, a display image at a display area;

capturing, by a pointing device, an image corresponding to at least a portion of the display image at the display area in a field of view of the pointing device; and

determining a location within the display image corresponding to a location in the at least the portion of the display image in the field of view of the pointing device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying, with the information processing system and based on the determining, a virtual pointer at the determined location within the display image corresponding to a location in the at least the portion of the display image in the field of view of the pointing device, wherein the location of the displayed graphical pointer in the displayed image is based at least in part on information related to the captured image.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting, by the pointing device, captured image related information to the information processing system that is causing the display image to be displayed at the display area.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the transmitting by the pointing device further comprises:

transmitting the captured related information to the information processing system via a transceiver base.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the displaying further comprises:

determining if the location of the virtual pointer is at a location in the display image that is substantially in the center of the field of view of the pointing device; and

adjusting the location of the virtual pointer, in response to determining that the location of the virtual pointer failed to be substantially in the center of the field of view of the pointing device, to be substantially in the center of the field of view of the pointing device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the information related to the captured image comprises one of:

the image captured by the pointing device; and

information associated with a location within the image captured by the pointing device that the pointing device is pointing to.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining further comprises:

identifying a set of reference points within the image captured by the pointing device;

comparing the set of reference points in the image captured by the pointing device to a set of reference points in the display image; and

identifying, based on the comparing, a set of reference points in the display image that matches the set of reference points in the image captured by the pointing device.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining further comprises:

calculating a transformation function based on the image captured by the pointing device and the display image.

9. A method, with a pointing device, for displaying a graphical pointer at a location on a display area, the method comprising:

capturing an image corresponding to at least a portion of a displayed image at a display area in a field of view of the pointing device;

analyzing the captured image;

identifying, based on the analyzing, a location in the captured image corresponding to a location in the displayed image at the display area; and

transmitting information associated with the identified location to an information processing system that is causing the displayed image to be displayed at the display area.

10. A method, with an information processing system, for displaying a graphical pointer at a location on a display area, the method comprising:

generating a display image;

displaying the display image in a display area, receiving captured image related information from a pointing device, wherein the captured image related information is associated with an image captured by the pointing device that corresponds to at least a portion of the display image at the display area in a field of view of the pointing device; and

determining, based on the received captured image related information, a location in the display image at the display area corresponding to a location in the at least the portion of the display image at the display area in the field of view of the pointing device.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

displaying, based on the determining, a virtual pointer at the determined location in the display image at the display area.

12. A display pointing system comprising:

an information processing system;

a display, communicatively coupled with the information processing system, operable for displaying a display image at a display area of the display;

a pointing device, communicatively coupled with the information processing system, operable for capturing, by the pointing device, an image corresponding to at least a portion of the display image at the display area in a field of view of the pointing device; and

wherein the information processing system is operable for determining a location within the display image corresponding to a location in the at least the portion of the display image in the field of view of the pointing device.

13. The display pointing system of claim 12, wherein the information processing system, based on the determined location within the display image, is operable to cause a virtual pointer to be displayed at the determined location within the display image corresponding to a location in the at least the portion of the display image in the field of view of the pointing device, wherein the location of the displayed graphical pointer in the displayed image is based at least in part on information related to the captured image.

14. The display pointing system of claim 12, wherein the pointing device is communicatively coupled with the information processing system via wireless communication, and wherein the pointing device is operable to wirelessly transmit information related to the captured image to the information processing system which is causing the display image to be displayed at the display area of the display.

15. The display pointing system of claim 14, wherein the information related to the captured image comprises at least one of:

the image captured by the pointing device; and

information associated with a location, within the image captured by the pointing device, to which the pointing device is pointing.

16. A display pointing device comprising:

a processor;

image capturing means, communicatively coupled with the processor, operable for capturing an image corresponding to at least a portion of a displayed image at a display area in a field of view of the pointing device; and

a transmitter, communicatively coupled with the processor, operable for transmitting information to an information processing system that is causing the displayed image to be displayed at the display area, and wherein the processor is further operable for;

analyzing the captured image,

identifying, based on the analyzing, a location in the captured image corresponding to a location in the displayed image at the display area; and

transmitting, with the transmitter, information associated with the identified location to the information processing system that is causing the displayed image to be displayed at the display area.