TOUCH DETECTION CIRCUIT, TOUCH DETECTION METHOD, AND ELECTRONIC APPARATUS

• US 20150042607A1
• Filed: 07/24/2014
• Published: 02/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: TAKANOHASHI, Kazukuni
• Granted Patent: US 9,639,200 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 2203/04108 Touchless 2D- digitiser, i.e. digitiser detecting the X/Y position of the input means, finger or stylus, also when it does not touch, but is proximate to the digitiser's interaction surface without distance measurement in the Z direction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04166 Details of scanning methods, e.g. sampling time, grouping of sub areas or time sharing with display driving Synchronisation with the driving of the display or the backlighting unit to avoid interferences generated internally G06F3/04184
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0446 using a grid-like structure of electrodes in at least two directions, e.g. using row and column electrodes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

A touch detection circuit includes: a map generation section configured to compare a touch signal corresponding to a proximity state of an external proximity object with each of a plurality of thresholds to generate a plurality of pieces of map data each showing touch regions; a labeling section configured to selectively perform labeling on the touch regions in the plurality of pieces of map data, based on inclusive relationship of the touch regions between the plurality of pieces of map data; and a detection section configured to perform touch detection based on processing results by the labeling section.

Claims

1. A touch detection circuit comprising:

a map generation section configured to compare a touch signal corresponding to a proximity state of an external proximity object with each of a plurality of thresholds to generate a plurality of pieces of map data each showing touch regions;

a labeling section configured to selectively perform labeling on the touch regions in the plurality of pieces of map data, based on inclusive relationship of the touch regions between the plurality of pieces of map data; and

a detection section configured to perform touch detection based on processing results by the labeling section.

2. The touch detection circuit according to claim 1, further comprising

a threshold setting section configured to set the plurality of thresholds based on the touch signal.

3. The touch detection circuit according to claim 1, wherein the detection section detects the number of touch events and touch positions.

4. The touch detection circuit according to claim 1, wherein the labeling section generates a first label set indicating correspondence between the touch regions and labels by

providing the labels to the respective touch regions in each of the map data, and

sequentially selecting two pieces of map data corresponding to two thresholds adjacent to each other, from the plurality of pieces of map data, and replacing the labels based on the inclusive relationship of the touch regions in the selected two pieces of map data.

5. The touch detection circuit according to claim 4, wherein the labeling section generates the first label set by,

when one touch region in low-order map data corresponding to a low threshold, of the selected two pieces of map data, includes a plurality of touch regions in high-order map data corresponding to a high threshold, replacing a label of one of the plurality of touch regions in the high-order map data with a label same as a label of the one touch region in the low-order map data, and

when one touch region in the low-order map data of the selected two pieces of map data includes a single touch region in the high-order map data, replacing a label of the single touch region with a label same as a label of the one touch region.

6. The touch detection circuit according to claim 4, wherein the labeling section generates a second label set by, after generating the first label set, sequentially selecting two pieces of map data corresponding to two thresholds adjacent to each other, from the plurality of pieces of map data, and when one touch region in the low-order map data corresponding to a low threshold, of the selected two pieces of map data, includes a plurality of touch regions in high-order map data corresponding to a high threshold, removing a label of the one touch region in the first label set.

7. The touch detection circuit according to claim 4, wherein the labeling section selects the two pieces of map data in order from map data corresponding to a high threshold.

8. The touch detection circuit according to claim 7, wherein the labeling section generates the first label set by,

when one touch region in low-order map data corresponding to a low threshold, of the selected two pieces of map data, includes a plurality of touch regions in high-order map data corresponding to a high threshold, replacing a label of the one touch region with a dummy label, and

when one touch region in the low-order map data of the selected two pieces of map data includes a single touch region in the high-order map data, replacing the label of the one touch region with a label same as a label of the single touch region.

9. The touch detection circuit according to claim 8, wherein the labeling section generates a second label set by, after generating the first label set, removing the dummy label from the first label set.

10. The touch detection circuit according to claim 1, wherein the labeling section generates a first label set indicating correspondence between the touch regions and labels by sequentially selecting two pieces of map data corresponding to two thresholds adjacent to each other, from the plurality of pieces of map data, and providing labels to the respective touch regions in each of the map data, based on inclusive relationship of the touch regions in the selected two pieces of map data.

11. The touch detection circuit according to claim 10, wherein the labeling section selects the two pieces of map data in order from map data corresponding to a low threshold.

12. The touch detection circuit according to claim 11, wherein

when one touch region in low-order map data corresponding to the low threshold, of the selected two pieces of map data, includes a plurality of touch regions in high-order map data corresponding to a high threshold, the labeling section replaces a label of the one touch region with a dummy label after providing one of the plurality of touch regions with a label same as the label of the one touch region, and

when one touch region in the low-order map data of the selected two pieces of map data includes a single touch region in the high-order map data, the labeling section provides the single touch region with a label same as the label of the one touch region.

13. The touch detection circuit according to claim 12, wherein the labeling section generates a second label set by, after generating the first label set, removing the dummy label from the first label set.

14. A touch detection method comprising:

comparing a touch signal corresponding to a proximity state of an external proximity object with each of a plurality of thresholds to generate a plurality of pieces of map data each showing touch regions;

selectively performing labeling on the touch regions in the plurality of pieces of map data based on inclusive relationship of the touch regions between the plurality of pieces of map data; and

performing touch detection based on labeling results.

15. An electronic apparatus provided with a touch detection device configured to detect an external proximity object, and a touch detection circuit, the touch detection circuit comprising:

a map generation section configured to compare a touch signal corresponding to a proximity state of the external proximity object to the touch detection device with each of a plurality of thresholds to generate a plurality of pieces of map data each showing touch regions;

a labeling section configured to selectively perform labeling on the touch regions in the plurality of pieces of map data, based on inclusive relationship of the touch regions between the plurality of pieces of map data; and

a detection section configured to perform touch detection based on processing results by the labeling section.