TOUCH-BASED GESTURES MODIFIED BY GYROSCOPE AND ACCELEROMETER

• US 20140232634A1
• Filed: 02/19/2013
• Published: 08/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/19/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Piemonte, Patrick S., van Os, Marcel
• Application Number:
  US13/770,947
• Publication Number:
  US 20140232634A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/156
• 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 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04815 Interaction with a metaphor-based environment or interaction object displayed as three-dimensional, e.g. changing the user viewpoint with respect to the environment or object

Abstract

A mobile device including a touchscreen display presents an image of a three-dimensional object. The display can concurrently present a user interface element that can be in the form of a virtual button. While the device'"'"'s user touches and maintains fingertip contact with the virtual button via the touchscreen, the mobile device can operate in a special mode in which physical tilting of the mobile device about physical spatial axes causes the mobile device to adjust the presentation of the image of the three-dimensional object on the display, causing the object to be rendered from different viewpoints in the virtual space that the object virtually occupies. The mobile device can detect such physical tilting based on feedback from a gyroscope and accelerometer contained within the device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting that a mobile device has been tilted along a first axis;

in response to detecting that the mobile device has been tilted along the first axis, changing content being displayed by the mobile device by modifying an angle, relative to a focal point, at which the mobile device displays the content;

detecting that the mobile device has been tilted along a second axis that differs from the first axis; and

in response to detecting that the mobile device has been tilted along the second axis, changing the content being displayed by the mobile device by rotating, about the focal point, a viewpoint from which the mobile device displays the content while maintaining the angle of the view relative to the focal point.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the angle at which the mobile device displays the content comprises modifying the angle in response to determining that a user is maintaining contact with a virtual button being displayed by the mobile device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the angle at which the mobile device displays the content comprises modifying the angle in response to determining that a user is maintaining contact with a virtual button that performs variant functionality based on whether the virtual button has been tapped or continuously contacted.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting that the mobile device has been tilted along the first axis comprises detecting that an angle of a display of the mobile device initially referenced with respect to a direction of gravity has changed from an initial angle;

and wherein modifying the angle at which the mobile device displays the content comprises re-rendering the content on the display to present a view of the content that includes more of a side view of a three-dimensional object than was previously displayed.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the angle at which the mobile device displays the content comprises modifying the angle only while the extent to which the mobile device tilts along the first axis is currently being changed.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein changing the content being displayed by the mobile device by rotating, about the focal point, the viewpoint from which the mobile device displays the content comprises continuously rotating the viewpoint about the focal point for as long as the mobile device remains tilted along the second axis from an initial physical orientation.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein changing the content being displayed by the mobile device by rotating, about the focal point, the viewpoint from which the mobile device displays the content comprises continuously rotating the viewpoint about the focal point for as long as the mobile device remains tilted along the second axis from an initial physical orientation that is established at a moment that the mobile device detects user contact against a particular user interface element.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein changing the content being displayed by the mobile device by rotating, about the focal point, the viewpoint from which the mobile device displays the content comprises continuously rotating the viewpoint about the focal point until an orientation of the mobile device is returned to an initial physical orientation in which the mobile device was oriented along the second axis prior to commencing the continuous rotating of the viewpoint.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein changing the content being displayed by the mobile device by rotating, about the focal point, the viewpoint from which the mobile device displays the content comprises continuously rotating the viewpoint about the focal point at a speed that varies based on an extent to which the mobile device is tilted along the second axis from an initial physical orientation.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the angle at which the mobile device displays the content comprises modifying the angle only while a physical orientation of the mobile device is currently being changed;

and wherein changing the content being displayed by the mobile device by rotating, about the focal point, the viewpoint from which the mobile device displays the content comprises continuously rotating the viewpoint about the focal point even while the physical orientation of the movile device is not currently being changed.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the first axis passes horizontally through a center of a display of the mobile device from a perspective of a viewer of the display;

and wherein the first axis passes vertically through the center of the display of the mobile device from the perspective of the viewer of the display.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein changing the content being displayed by the mobile device by modifying the angle, relative to the focal point, at which the mobile device displays the content comprises re-rendering the content on a display from a perspective of the viewpoint while maintaining the focal point at a same position on the display;

and wherein changing the content being displayed by the mobile device by rotating the viewpoint about the focal point, the viewpoint from which the mobile device displays the content comprises re-rendering the content on the display from the perspective of the viewpoint while maintaining the focal point at the same position on the display.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting that the mobile device has been tilted along the first axis comprises detecting that the mobile device has been tilted along the first axis based on measurements obtained from an accelerometer of the mobile device;

and wherein detecting that the mobile device has been tilted along the second axis comprises detecting that the mobile device has been tilted along the second axis based on measurements obtained from a gyroscope of the mobile device.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein rotating the viewpoint about the focal point while maintaining the angle of the view relative to the focal point comprises moving the viewpoint along a circular track that lies within a virtual plane that is parallel to a virtual plane on which the focal point sits;

and further comprising gradually slowing to a stop the movement of the viewpoint along the circular track in response to detecting that the mobile device has been returned to an orientation that the mobile device possessed prior to the tilting along the second axis.

15. A computer-readable memory comprising particular instructions that are executable by one or more processors to cause the one or more processors to perform operations, the particular instructions comprising:

instructions to cause a computing device to detect that the computing device is being been tilted in a first direction;

instructions to cause the computing device to modify a first parameter only while the extent to which the device is being tilted in the first direction is currently changing;

instructions to cause the computing device to detect that the computing device has been tilted in a second direction that differs from the first direction; and

instructions to cause the computing device to continuously modify a second parameter until the computing device has stopped being tilted in the second direction.

16. The computer-readable memory of claim 15, instructions to cause the computing device to continuously modify the second parameter until the computing device has stopped being tilted in the second direction comprise instructions to cause the computing device to modify the second parameter until the computing device has been returned to an orientation that the computing device possessed prior to being tilted in the second direction.

17. The computer-readable memory of claim 15, wherein the instructions to cause the computing device to modify the first parameter only while the extent to which the device is being tilted in the first direction is currently changing comprise instructions to cause the computing device to cease changing the first parameter while an orientation of the computing device is not currently changing even though the orientation of the computing device remains different from an orientation that the computing device possessed prior to being tilted in the first direction.

18. The computer-readable memory of claim 15, wherein the instructions to cause the computing device to modify the first parameter involve calculating a new value for the first parameter based on a difference between an original orientation of the computing device and a current orientation of the computing device from top to bottom;

and wherein the instructions to cause the computing device to modify the second parameter involve continuously adjusting the second parameter at a rate that is based on a difference between an original orientation of the computing device and a current orientation of the computing device from left side to right side.

19. The computer-readable memory of claim 15, wherein the first parameter is one of volume, brightness, and contrast;

and wherein the second parameter is a different parameter than the first parameter.

20. A mobile device comprising:

an accelerometer to detect an extent to which the mobile device is tilted relative to a direction of gravity;

a gyroscope to detect an extent to which the mobile device is tilted unrelated to the direction of gravity; and

a memory storing a program that is configured to modify a first parameter based on a measurement from the accelerometer, and to modify a second parameter based on a measurement from the gyroscope.