Visual communications apparatus employing eye-position monitoring
First Claim
1. Visual communications apparatus comprising:
- display means for displaying characters in a field of view of a user'"'"'s eye, the characters being arranged in a plurality of groups, each character occupying in its group one of a plurality of positions which positions are similar for all groups;
user-controlled means for controlling light to select one of said plurality of characters and comprising detection means for detecting changes in said light and providing corresponding position signals, and processor means defining boundaries of a plurality of selection fields and determining, in response to the position signals, which of the selection fields has been selected by the user;
the selection fields comprising character selection fields and position selection fields, the processor means being responsive to an initial selection of a position selection field to limit subsequent selection to a subset of said characters which each occupy a corresponding position in each group, and subsequently determining from the position signals the specific one of said subset of characters chosen by the user.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In an eye-directed communications device which displays characters, for example symbols or letters, and determines a user'"'"'s selection by monitoring eye position to determine which of the characters is being observed, difficulties in providing for selection of the usual characters and functions of a conventional 101 key computer keyboard are overcome by dividing the required characters/functions into three sets, designated as lower case, upper case and "command" case. In order to select a particular character, the user first selects the case and then selects the character. Only one set need be displayed to the user, the characters in the other sets having spatial correspondence with those in displayed set. The system may also, or alternatively, display the characters in groups and define position selection fields corresponding to the positions of the characters in each group. The user then determines the position of the desired character in its group and makes a character selection by first selecting the corresponding position field. The apparatus then limits subsequent character selection by the user to the subset of characters in the corresponding positions in their groups. Limitation to the subset allows subsequent detection of the selected character to use a larger area than that occupied by the character in the display.
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Citations
40 Claims
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1. Visual communications apparatus comprising:
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display means for displaying characters in a field of view of a user'"'"'s eye, the characters being arranged in a plurality of groups, each character occupying in its group one of a plurality of positions which positions are similar for all groups; user-controlled means for controlling light to select one of said plurality of characters and comprising detection means for detecting changes in said light and providing corresponding position signals, and processor means defining boundaries of a plurality of selection fields and determining, in response to the position signals, which of the selection fields has been selected by the user; the selection fields comprising character selection fields and position selection fields, the processor means being responsive to an initial selection of a position selection field to limit subsequent selection to a subset of said characters which each occupy a corresponding position in each group, and subsequently determining from the position signals the specific one of said subset of characters chosen by the user. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. Visual communications apparatus comprising:
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display means for displaying characters in a field of view of a user'"'"'s eye, user-controlled means for controlling light to select one of said plurality of characters and comprising detection means for detecting changes in said light and providing corresponding position signals, and processor means defining boundaries of a plurality of selection fields comprising character selection fields and case selection fields, and determining in response to the position signals which of the selection fields has been selected by the user; the processor means storing a plurality of sets of characters and being responsive to an initial user-selection of a case selection field to limit subsequent selection to a corresponding one of said sets of characters, and subsequently to user-selection of a character selection field to determine the character selected by the user. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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31. Visual communications apparatus comprising:
a viewing port;
display means for displaying characters for viewing by a user'"'"'s eye by way of the viewing port; and
eye-position monitoring means for monitoring eye-position to determine a character selected by the user, the eye-position monitoring means comprising infrared light source means, infrared receiver and a dichroic beam splitter, the dichroic beam splitter transmitting visible light incident thereupon along a first optical path and reflecting infrared light incident thereupon along a second optical path, the first optical path extending between the beam splitter and the display means and the second optical path extending between the beam splitter and both of the infrared light source means and the receiver means, the arrangement being such that infrared light from the infrared light source means is reflected by the beam splitter towards the viewing port, infrared light front the viewing port is reflected by the beam spliter towards the infrared light receiver means, and visible light from the display means is transmitted by the beam splitter towards the viewing port.- View Dependent Claims (32)
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33. Eye-directed communications apparatus comprising:
display means for displaying characters within a field of view of a user and means for monitoring a user'"'"'s eye position to determine characters selected by the user, the display means being arranged to display each character in a corresponding character field, the monitoring means including a processor means programmed to calibrate the monitoring means by a training procedure in which the user directs the eye in a predetermined sequence upon a predetermined number of character fields, the processor means highlighting each selected character field, after that selected first, only after the eye has dwelled within a limited region surrounding that field and extinguishing the highlighting when measurement at that point is completed. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35, 36)
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37. Visual communications apparatus comprising:
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display means for displaying characters in a field of view of a user'"'"'s eye, the characters being arranged in a plurality of groups, each character occupying in its group one of a plurality of positions which positions are similar for all groups; user-controlled means for controlling light to select one of said plurality of characters and comprising detection means for detecting changes in said light and providing corresponding position signals, and processor means defining boundaries of a plurality of selection fields and determining, in response to the position signals, which of the selection fields has been selected by the user; the selection fields comprising character selection fields and character subset selection fields, the character selection fields corresponding to character positions, the character subset selection fields being equal in number to the number of characters in each group, the positions of the character subset selection fields relative to each other corresponding to the positions of the character in each group relative to each other, the processor means being responsive to an initial selection of a character subset selection field to limit subsequent selection of a character to that subset of said characters which each occupy that position in the group corresponding to the selected character subset selection field, and subsequently determining from the position signals subsequent selection by the user of a character selection field for a specific one of said subset of characters. - View Dependent Claims (38, 39, 40)
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Specification