Gesture-based input information processing apparatus

• US 5,796,406 A
• Filed: 06/01/1995
• Issued: 08/18/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/1992
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Nakamura, Yutaka, Nagasawa, Hiroyuki, Kurata, Masaaki, Nakao, Hiroshi, Nakajima, Yasuhiro, Shigematsu, Hiroyuki, Sakamoto, Munenori
• Primary Examiner(s): Huynh, Ba
• Application Number:
  US08/457,458
• Time in Patent Office: 1,174 Days
• Field of Search: 345/179, 345/180, 345/156, 345/358, 345/173, 382/187, 382/189, 395/358
• US Class Current: 715/863
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/16 Sound input; Sound output speech processing G10L
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/333 Preprocessing; Feature extraction
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/373 using a special pattern or subpattern alphabet

Abstract

An information processing apparatus obtains a distance that an input pen is moved in terms of the number of dots covered on a display screen, and from that number, judges whether a pen stroke is a gesture entry or a pointing entry. When the input pen is moved over more than a predetermined number of dots, e.g., eight dots, gesture recognition processing is performed. If the input pen is moved less than that number of dots, a pointing instruction is recognized, and pointing processing is performed. If a gesture is recognized, a recognized gesture editing command and a feature point of the gesture command are stored in RAM. Since an input by the input pen is judged a gesture entry or a pointing entry according to the number of dots over which the input pen is moved, a switch is not required to change data/instruction entry modes which reduces cost and improves handling.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus comprising:

a screen;

an input pen for inputting coordinates and drawing a line on said screen;

position detecting means for detecting coordinates of a position on said screen where a pen point of said input pen makes contact with said screen;

reference-stroke storing means for storing a plurality of predetermined reference strokes;

reference-stroke selecting means for comparing a pen stroke made on a text on said screen by said input pen with the reference strokes according to coordinates detected by said position detecting means and selecting a reference stroke which is closest to the pen stroke;

processing means for editing the text according to an edit instruction corresponding to the reference stroke selected by said reference-stroke selecting means and inputting coordinates of a position on said screen pointed by said input pen; and

means for storing for each reference stroke either an enabled state or a disable state, said reference-stroke selecting means checking the enabled/disabled state of each reference stroke before comparing and selecting the reference stroke which is closest to the pen stroke.

2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising filing means for filing a state set by said storing means in readable form.

3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

grouping means for grouping the reference strokes into a group which enables a comparison and selection of reference strokes, and a group which disables the comparison and selection of reference strokes; and

mode selecting means for selecting a mode from a first mode in which recognition processing is performed according to a result of grouping and a second mode in which the recognition processing is performed without regard to the result of grouping.

4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 3,

wherein said mode selecting means selects a mode in which the recognition processing is enabled with respect to every reference stroke and a mode in which recognition processing is disabled with respect to every reference stroke.

5. An information processing apparatus comprising:

a screen;

an input pen for inputting coordinates and drawing a line on said screen;

position detecting means for detecting coordinates of a position on said screen where a pen point of said input pen makes contact with said screen;

reference-stroke storing means for storing a plurality of predetermined reference strokes;

reference-stroke selecting means for comparing a pen stroke made on a text on said screen by said input pen with the reference strokes according to coordinates detected by said position detecting means and selecting a reference stroke which is closest to the pen stroke;

processing means for editing the text according to an edit instruction corresponding to the reference stroke selected by said reference-stroke selecting means and inputting coordinates of a position on said screen pointed by said input pen; and

storing means for temporarily storing information,

wherein said processing means displays on said screen edit prompting information relating to edit processing when an execution range of the edit processing according to a selected reference stroke is not determined to prompt an operator to clarify the execution range of the edit processing.

6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 5,

wherein said storing means reads out the stored information when the execution range of the edit processing is determined.

7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 5,

wherein the edit prompting information includes a message for selecting whether edit processing to be executed by said processing means according to a result of recognizing a pen stroke is cancelled, and

said storing means reads out the information when the edit processing executed by said processing means according to a result of recognizing a pen stroke is cancelled.

8. An information processing apparatus comprising:

a screen;

an input pen for inputting coordinates and drawing a line on said screen;

a position detector for detecting coordinates of a position on said screen where a point of said input pen contacts said screen;

a reference-stroke memory for storing a plurality of predetermined reference pen strokes and stroke enablement information for each reference pen stroke indicating whether the reference stroke is enabled or disabled;

a reference-stroke recognizer for comparing a pen stroke drawn on text displayed on said screen with the predetermined reference strokes according to coordinates detected by said position detector and selecting one of the predetermined reference strokes which is a closest match to the drawn pen stroke;

a text editor for editing the text according to an edit instruction corresponding to the selected reference stroke and storing coordinates in a display memory of a position on said screen pointed to by said input pen; and

a processor for selecting only certain ones of the plurality of predetermined reference strokes stored in the reference stroke memory for use by said reference-stroke recognizer and text editor during text editing based on the stroke enablement information stored for each reference pen stroke.

9. The information processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein said processor groups the plurality of predetermined reference strokes into an enabled reference stroke group that enables comparison and selection of reference strokes and a disabled reference stroke group that disables comparison and selection of reference strokes based on the stroke enablement information stored in the reference-stroke memory.

10. The information processing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein said processor selects a mode of operation from a first mode in which stroke recognition processing is performed according to a grouping by said processor and a second mode in which stroke recognition processing is performed without regard to whether or not certain ones of the reference strokes are enabled.