SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING A NUMBER OF USERS AND THEIR RESPECTIVE POSITIONS RELATIVE TO A DEVICE

• US 20170139537A1
• Filed: 05/13/2015
• Published: 05/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/01/2014
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Maloo, Raghvendra, Subramaniam, Gokul V.
• Application Number:
  US15/300,667
• Publication Number:
  US 20170139537A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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 3/04186 Touch location disambiguation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/7635 based on graphs, e.g. graph cuts or spectral clustering
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/107 Static hand or arm

Abstract

Particular embodiments described herein provide for a system, an apparatus, and a method for determining a number of users and their respective positions relative to a device. One example embodiment includes acquiring touch point data from a hand of a user, clustering the touch point data, and determining a respective position of the user by mapping the clustered touch point data to a pre-defined hand pattern. The touch point data can include a plurality of touch points and a distance between each touch point is used to cluster the touch point data. In one example, the touch point data may be acquired using a touch sensor and the touch sensor can be a touch display.

Claims

1. An electronic device, comprising:

a touch sensor to acquire touch point data from a hand of a user;

a touch point clustering module to cluster the touch point data; and

a hand pattern module to determine a respective position of the user by mapping the clustered touch point data to a pre-defined hand pattern.

2. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the touch point data includes a plurality of touch points and a distance between each touch point is used to cluster the touch point data.

3. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising:

a thumb position correction module to correctly configure the clustered touch point data when a finger touch point is classified as a thumb touch point.

4. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising:

a pattern conflict resolution module to help prevent the clustered touch point data from being mapped to more than one hand pattern.

5. The electronic device of claim 4, wherein the pattern conflict resolution module uses a horizontal span and a vertical span to determine the correct hand pattern.

6. The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising:

a false positive removal module to remove false positives.

7. The electronic device of claim 6, wherein the false positive removal module uses hand geometric statistics to remove false positives.

8. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the touch point data is received from a touch display.

9. A method, comprising:

acquiring touch point data from a hand of a user;

clustering the touch point data; and

determining a respective position of the user by mapping the clustered touch point data to a pre-defined hand pattern.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the touch point data includes a plurality of touch points and a distance between each touch point is used to cluster the touch point data.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the touch point data is acquired using a touch sensor.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the touch sensor is a touch display.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein a touch point clustering module is used to cluster the touch point data.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

re-configuring the clustered touch point data when a finger touch point is classified as a thumb touch point.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

preventing the clustered touch point data from being mapped to more than one hand pattern using a pattern conflict resolution module.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the pattern conflict resolution module uses a horizontal span and a vertical span to determine the correct hand pattern.

17. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

removing false positives from the clustered touch point data.

18. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

using hand geometric statistics to remove false positives from the clustered touch point data.

19. One or more computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to

acquire touch point data from a hand of a user;

cluster the touch point data, wherein the touch point data includes a plurality of touch points and a distance between each touch point is used to cluster the touch point data; and

determine a respective position of the user by mapping the clustered touch point data to a pre-defined hand pattern.

20. The medium of claim 19, wherein the touch point data is acquired using a touch sensor.