AREA FILTERING FOR LOW-LATENCY AND HIGH-LATENCY INPUT EVENT PATHS FROM A SINGLE TOUCH SENSOR

• US 20170235424A1
• Filed: 02/02/2017
• Published: 08/17/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/02/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tactual Labs Co.
• Original Assignee: Tactual Labs Co.
• Inventors: De Araujo, Bruno Rodrigues, Forlines, Clifton, Costa, Ricardo Jorge Jota, Sanders, Steven Leonard
• Granted Patent: US 10,241,620 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0416 Control or interface arrangements specially adapted for digitisers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0418 for error correction or compensation, e.g. based on parallax, calibration or alignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures

Abstract

In an embodiment, a touch surface, such as a GUI is graphically divided into two or more input regions, and based on this division, input event paths from a single sensor can be integrated within an operating system to provide application developers with the ability to easily and effectively filter there-between. The graphical division allows an application developer to specify which elements of a given GUI take one path, versus another. In an embodiment, low-latency and high-latency event paths are provided; an algorithm takes into consideration input regions and, based on those regions, handles the low- and high-latency input event paths in a computer system, directing the appropriate inputs through the appropriate processing, and directing the output to the appropriate process or queue without creating constraints on the low-latency event processing due to the presence of higher-latency event paths for a given sensor.

Claims

1. A touch sensitive device comprising:

a. computer system including a low-latency path for touch data and at least one other latency path for touch data;

b. touch sensor operatively connected to an interface of the computer system;

c. the interface of the computer system being configured to receive touch-related information from the touch sensor, and to output touch data; and

d. configurable database identifying at least one region of the touch sensor as a low-latency input region;

e. routing process having access to the configurable database, the routing process being configured to receive the touch data from the interface, and to route touch data associated with the low-latency input region of the touch sensor to the low-latency path for touch data, and to route touch data that is not associated with the low-latency input region of the touch sensor to at least one of the at least one other latency path for touch data.

2. The touch sensitive device of claim 1, wherein touch data routed to the at least one of the at least one other latency path is further processed along with other touch data routed to the at least one of the at least one other latency path.

3. The touch sensitive device of claim 1, wherein touch event data routed to the at least one of the at least one other latency path is decimated to provide a smaller number of events to a recipient of the at least one of the at least one other latency processes.

4. The touch sensitive device of claim 1, wherein touch event data routed to at least one of the at least one other latency path is aggregated to provide a smaller number of events to a recipient of the at least one of the at least one other latency processes.

5. A method of managing touch data from a touch sensor, the method comprising:

identifying a first region on a touch sensor, the first region comprising less than the entire touch sensor;

providing a low-latency path for processing touch data and at least one other path for processing touch data;

receiving touch-related information from the touch sensor;

identifying at least one touch event from the touch-related information;

determining whether the touch event is associated with the first region;

routing the touch event to a low-latency touch path if the touch event is associated with the first region;

routing the touch event to at least one of the at least one other path for processing touch data if the touch event is not associated with the first region.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the low-latency touch path employs a GPU processor, and the at least one of the at least one other path for processing touch data employs a CPU processor.

7. A method of managing touch data from a touch sensor, the method comprising:

defining at least two regions on the touch sensor such that there are defined at least a low-latency region and a normal-latency region;

providing a low-latency path for processing touch data from the low-latency region;

providing a normal-latency path for processing touch data from the normal-latency region;

receiving touch-related information from the touch sensor;

identifying at least one touch event from the touch-related information;

routing the touch event to the low-latency touch path for processing touch data if the touch event is associated with the low-latency region;

routing the touch event to the normal-latency touch path for processing touch data if the touch event is associated with the normal-latency region.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the step of:

changing the definition of at least one of the at least two regions on the touch sensor such that there is redefined at least one of the low-latency region and the normal-latency region, and thereafter repeating the receiving, identifying and routing steps.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the low-latency region comprises a plurality of non-contiguous sub-regions.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the low-latency region and the normal-latency region are defined such that they comprise no overlapping portions.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of defining at least two regions on the touch sensor includes defining a third, high-latency region, and the method further comprises:

providing a high-latency path for processing touch data from the high-latency region.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of routing the touch event to the low-latency touch path for processing touch data also includes routing the touch event to another touch path for processing touch data.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the low-latency touch path employs a GPU processor in connection with processing touch events, and the at least one of the at least one other path for processing touch data employs a CPU processor in connection with processing touch events.