METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DETERMINING A USER'S TOUCH GESTURE

• US 20130194226A1
• Filed: 04/19/2011
• Published: 08/01/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/19/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Elo Touch Solutions, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Elo Touch Solutions, Inc.
• Inventors: Benhamouda, Franck
• Granted Patent: US 9,678,606 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/174
• 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 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/044 by capacitive means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures

Abstract

The invention relates to a device, in particular, a touch sensitive device, and more in particular, a single-touch sensitive device configured to recognize gestures, such as zoom, rotate, flick, using specific characteristics based on a single-touch localization system. The invention also relates to a method for recognizing/identifying gestures, such as zoom, rotate, flick, in a low-end device equipped with such as a single-touch sensitive device which is able to recognize one single point at a time.

Claims

1. A method for determining a user'"'"'s touch gesture in a touch sensitive device comprising

an interaction surface and means capable of only analyzing the location of a single touch point of a continuous single-touch event or a continuous multi-touch touch event, on the interaction surface at a time, the method comprising the steps of:

a) determining a plurality of consecutive touch point coordinates of at least one continuous touch event on the interaction surface during the user'"'"'s touch gesture and

b) determining a predetermined single-touch pattern or a multi-touch touch pattern, based on a predetermined relation between the touch point coordinates determined in step a), and

c) attributing a predetermined action corresponding to the touch pattern determined during step b).

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein step a) is carried out during a predetermined duration, in particular during 400 to 800 ms and step b) is carried out if the number of determined touch point coordinates is greater than a minimum threshold value and/or if the distance between at least two touch point coordinates is greater than a predetermined value.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein step b) comprises analyzing whether the touch point coordinates are essentially positioned on a line or not.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein step b) comprises identifying that the touch point coordinates are essentially positioned on a line by determining whether a predetermined number of consecutive determined touch point coordinates satisfy the relationship:

y_i=axi+b±

Δ

or x_i=c±

Δ

wherein, y_i and x_i correspond to the touch point coordinates of touch i in the predetermined number of consecutive touch point coordinates, a is a first constant, in particular an integer, b is a second constant, c is a third constant and Δ

is a fourth constant, and wherein a is limited to a predetermined number of different discrete values, in particular less than 50, more in particular less than 10, even more in particular less than 5.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein a is one out of a=0 and a=±

1 or one out of a=0, a=±

½

, a=±

1 and a=±

2.

6. The method according to claim 3, wherein if in step b) it is decided that the touch point coordinates are positioned on a line, step b) comprises an additional step b1) of determining whether or not the continuous touch event relates to a multi-touch touch event, in particular a zoom event, by analyzing whether or not two essentially linear, in particular simultaneous, trajectories with different directions are identified in the continuous touch event.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein step b1) further comprises a step of deciding that the continuous touch event relates to a multi-touch touch event if at least one, preferably more than one, changeover from increasing to decreasing coordinates x_i, and/or y_i and/or at least one, preferably more than one, changeover from decreasing to increasing coordinates x_i, and/or y_i is determined.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein step b1) comprises determining vectors for pairs of touch point coordinates, wherein the starting point of the vector relates to touch point coordinates of an earlier touch point in the continuous touch event compared to the end point of the vector.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein step b1) further comprises determining scalar products of pairs of vectors and deciding that a multi-touch event occurred when scalar products with opposing signs are determined.

10. The method according to claim 3, wherein if in step b) it is decided that the touch point coordinates are positioned on a line, step b) comprises a step b2) of deciding that the multi-touch touch event relates to a zoom-in event, if the touch point coordinates of the first touch point is positioned within the line defined by the touch point coordinates at the extremities and deciding that the multi-touch touch event relates to a zoom-out event, if the touch point coordinates of the first touch point is positioned at an extremity of the line defined by the touch point coordinates, and attributing a zoom-in or zoom-out action in step c).

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein step b) comprises analyzing whether the touch point coordinates follow an arc shaped trajectory or not.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein if the touch point coordinates follow an arc shaped trajectory, in step c) a rotation action is attributed.

13. The method according to claim 11, wherein step b) comprises determining vectors for pairs of touch point coordinates, in particular for all pairs of touch points or for immediately successive touch point coordinates wherein the starting point of the vector relates to touch point coordinates of an earlier touch point in the continuous touch event compared to the end point of the vector.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the angles between a succession of a predetermined number of vectors is added up, and if the sum exceeds a predetermined threshold a rotation action is attributed in step c).

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein a rotation action in the positive sense is attributed in case the sum exceeds a first threshold and a rotation action in the negative sense is attributed in case the sum is below a second threshold.

16. The method according to claim 11, wherein step b) comprises determining the distance d1_i between touch point locations i and i+2 and the distance d2_i between touch point location i+1 the line defined by touch point locations i and i+2 and deciding that the touch event relates to an arc shaped trajectory if d1_i/d2_i=d±

Δ and

/or d1_i*d1_i/d2_i=e±

Δ

, for a predetermined number of consecutive touch point locations, wherein i, i+1 and i+2 indicate three consecutive touch point locations, d and e is a constant and Δ

a predetermined parameter.

17. A computer program product, comprising one or more non-transitory computer readable media having computer-executable instructions stored therein for use with a touch sensitive device comprising an interaction surface and means capable of only analyzing the location of a single touch point of a continuous single-touch event or a continuous multi-touch touch event on the interaction surface at a time, the computer-executable instructions configured to:

a) determine a plurality of consecutive touch point coordinates of at least one continuous touch event on the interaction surface during the user'"'"'s touch gesture;

b) determine a predetermined single-touch pattern or a multi-touch touch pattern, based on a predetermined relation between the touch point coordinates determined in step a); and

c) attribute a predetermined action corresponding to the touch pattern determined during step b).

18. A touch sensitive device comprising a touch sensitive interaction surface and a means for determining the location of an interaction on the surface, wherein the means can only identify the location of one touch point at a time and a means for analyzing a succession of touch point locations of a continuous touch event on the interaction surface by:

a) determining a plurality of consecutive touch point coordinates of at least one continuous touch event on the interaction surface during the user'"'"'s touch gesture;

b) determining a predetermined single-touch pattern or a multi-touch touch pattern, based on a predetermined relation between the touch point coordinates determined in step a); and

c) attributing a predetermined action corresponding to the touch pattern determined during step b).

19. Touch sensitive device according to claim 18, characterized in that the touch point coordinates are determined based on an analysis of acoustic signals.