Cursor controlling device and the method of the same

• US 6,323,844 B1
• Filed: 08/11/1997
• Issued: 11/27/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Chen, Mei-Yun, Fu-Kuo Yeh
• Original Assignee: Chen, Mei-Yun, Fu-Kuo Yeh
• Inventors: Chen, Mei-Yun, Yeh, Fu-Kuo
• Primary Examiner(s): Saras, Steven
• Assistant Examiner(s): Alphonse, Fritz
• Application Number:
  US08/908,098
• Time in Patent Office: 1,569 Days
• Field of Search: 345/157, 345/160, 345/184, 345/161, 345/166, 345/167, 345/163
• US Class Current: 345/166
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/0384 Wireless input, i.e. hardware and software details of wireless interface arrangements for pointing devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0317 in co-operation with a patterned surface, e.g. absolute position or relative movement detection for an optical mouse or pen positioned with respect to a coded surface
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03548 Sliders, in which the moving part moves in a plane
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/038 Control and interface arrangements therefor, e.g. drivers or device-embedded control circuitry

Abstract

A cursor controlling device and the method thereof, the moving and positioning of the cursor on the computer display are controlled by said cursor controlling device through a controlling circuit, wherein said cursor controlling device is comprised of a case, an information carrier set, a reading set and a sliding bar set, wherein the information carriers are located on the same plane in parallel or are serially connected within the proper position of said case and they are overlapped with each other, another, each of the information carriers has a driving portion for being driven by said sliding bar set, and when said driving portions of the information carriers are serially connected and overlapped with each other, they may be installed internal or external the case. Besides, in the cursor control method of the present invention, there are two operating mode on the control circuit, wherein in the first operation mode, the movement of a finger controllable element is detected, and then the cursor is moved correspondingly; in the second operation mode, a virtual pointer area is installed so that as the finger controllable element is moved into this area, it is automatically converted into the operation of specified instruction to perform a bidirectional movement containing at least a scrolling operation, or it may be separated specially to increase a function in which the cursor may arrive at the boundry of hte virtual display, thus the moving area of said control device may be design within an area about 0.5 inch, and it may be mapped into the whole display by absolute coordinate. Besides, it has further space for programming the function of automatic scrolling and arriving at the boundary fast.

Claims

1. A cursor controlling device, in which the cursor controlling device is used to control a displacement and location of a cursor on a computer display, said cursor controlling device comprising:

a case which is comprised of an upper piece and a lower piece, a cavity being formed between the upper piece and the lower piece;

an information carrier set within said case and having at least two information carriers for recording information signals used to identify “

0” and

“

1”

, so as to record two dimensional movement of said cursor controlling device along an X axis and a Y axis;

a reading set installed within the case for coupling with said information carrier to drive the “

0” and

“

1”

signals corresponding to said two dimensional movement of said cursor controlling device;

a sliding bar set having at least an X axis sensor and a Y axis sensor set for driving said information carrier, respectively, bars of said sliding bar set being slidable relative to said case,

wherein said installed information carrier is serially and actively connected to a portion of said case, and each of said information carriers has a driving portion which is projected to the external side of said case in order to be driven by the respective sliding bar set, whereby an assembled volume of said cursor controlling device is reduced to a minimum value so that the cursor controlling device may be moved within a very small area to control movement of the cursor on the display.

3. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein a frame is installed on said device with respect to said sliding bar set, two sides of the frame are installed with sliding grooves which are parallel to X axis, and the other sides thereof are installed with sliding grooves which are parallel to Y axis so that the sliding bar set may be slid on the sliding grooves.

6. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 1 or 2 or 4, wherein said information carriers each has a circular shape and is driven by a gear which is connected with the center of said circular shape, a long hole is installed on a middle portion of said sliding bar, and a rack is installed within said hole for directly engaging the gear for driving said information carriers.

7. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 1 or 2 or 4, wherein said information carriers are include media selected from the group consisting of optic grid pieces, magnetic disk, magnetic tapes, optic disks, touch pads, optic shift reflector, and combinations of said media.

8. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein each said information carrier is an optic grid piece, said reading set is an optic sensing set, bright and dark lattices installed on each of the information carriers are located on different circumferences, and at least a portion of said optic grid piece is transparent, the receiving portion and illuminating portion of the optic sensing set being installed on the upper and lower sides of said case, respectively, and the optic sensing set corresponds to different said bright and dark lattices for reading a message thereon.

9. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 8, wherein a small gear is installed on one of the information carriers, and a long shaft is installed below and connected with said small gear, while a short shaft is installed on another end of said information carrier piece, a large gear is installed on another said information carrier piece, a short shaft is connected with and installed below said large gear, and a penetrating hole is included at the center of said short shaft for penetration by the long shaft of the small gear.

10. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 8, wherein each of the two information carriers is installed with a central hole through which a middle shaft extends to connect the information carriers, and an expanding portion is installed at a central portion of said middle shaft for spacing the two information carriers.

11. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 8, wherein a driving portion of each information carrier is a purely hollow axis body, and respective ropes are installed on the sliding bar sets, whereby when the ropes are combined, central portions thereof extend around the hollow axial bodies of the information carriers, while two ends of the ropes are attached to the sliding bar set for fixing the ropes so that the information carriers are driven to rotate by movement of the sliding bar sets.

12. The cursor controlling device is claimed in claim 8, wherein said case has a rectangular shape, and the sensor sets are installed at opposite corners of said case.

13. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 7, wherein said device is installed on one of the keyboards, remote controllers, operating panel of notebook computers, and computer mice.

2. A cursor controlling device, comprising:

a case which is comprised of an upper piece and a lower piece, a cavity being formed between the upper piece and the lower piece;

an information carrier set within said cavity and having at least two information carriers for recording information signals used to identify “

0” and

“

0”

so as to associate movement of said cursor controlling device with an X axis and a Y axis;

a reading set installed within the case for coupling with information carriers to derive the “

0” and

“

1”

signals;

a sliding bar set having at least an X axis and a Y axis sensor set for driving said information carrier, respectively, bars of said sliding bar set being slidable relative to said case;

wherein said installed optic sensing set are serially and actively connected to a portion of said case and are overlapped with each other, each of said information carriers having a driven portion for being driving by said sliding bar, said driven portion being within said case, and the outer surface of said case being installed with a notch so that the sliding bar set may pass therethrough, whereby an assembled volume of said cursor controlling device is reduced to a minimum value so to the cursor controlling device may be moved within a very small area to control movement of the cursor on the display.

4. A cursor controlling device, in which the cursor controlling device is used to control displacement and location of a cursor on a computer display, the cursor controlling device comprising:

a case which is comprises of an upper piece and a lower piece, a cavity being formed between the upper piece and the lower piece;

an information carrier set within said cavity and having at least two information carriers for recording information signals used to identify “

0” and

“

1”

so as to associate movement of said cursor controlling device with an X axis and a Y axis;

a reading set installed within the case for coupling with information carriers to derive the “

0” and

“

1”

signals;

a sliding bar set having at least an X axis and a Y axis sensor set for driving said information carrier, respectively, bars of said sliding bar set being slidable relative to the case;

wherein said information carriers are connected in parallel to a portion of said case, while the upper piece and the lower piece of said case is constructed by a frame and a plate body, and the frame is installed with a sliding bar moving area, and a plurality of holes are installed on said plate body for positioning said two information carriers in parallel;

whereby the assembled cursor controlling device is reduced to a minimum volume so to the cursor controlling device may be moved within a very small area to control movement of cursor moving the display.

5. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 4, wherein controlling keys are installed on the plate body of said upper piece, walking tracks of the sensor set are installed on two sides of the frame of said upper piece, a concave mouth is installed on the frame of said lower piece for being passed by another sliding bar, and the plate body of said lower piece is a circuit board the bottom of which is installed with a pillar inserted into a hole of a bottom plate so that the sliding bar set within said case and said information carrier set may rotated through an intended angle.

14. A cursor controlling device, in which the cursor controlling device is used to control displacement and location of a cursor on a computer display, said cursor controlling device comprising:

a case which is a finger controllable element;

at least one circular optic piece and a respective reading set for generating signals of 0 and 1, and for reading data about movement of the finger controllable element; and

at least one register for recording the length values of the signals 0 and 1 generated by optic grid pieces,

said device having a single operating mode for detecting said movement of the finger controllable element using at least two sets of different ratio constants to multiply a moving distance of the finger controllable element according to a variation in moving speed of the finger controllable element, and thereby controlling a moving distance of the cursor among the display screen to be positively proportional to the respective rotational distance of the finger controllable element.

15. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 14 wherein there are two respective sets of optic grid pieces, one for detecting movement along the X axis and the other for detecting movement along the Y axis, and at least two registers are installed for each of the axes, and wherein the single operating mode presets a constant C according to the sum of the number of the signals 0 and 1 which could be generated in each axis and divides the constant C into a low speed section C1 and a plurality of high speed sections C2, . . . , Cn, wherein each of the low and high speed sections C1,C2, . . . , Cn is correspondent to respectively different moving ratios K1,K2, . . . , Kn, taking the sum of the multiplies of the respective speed sections and the moving ratios C1K1+C2K2+. . . +CnKn to the resolution of the respective display screen, and further using the at least two registers to record the moving lattice numbers of the low speed section C1 and the high speed section C2, respectively, the sum of all registers being equal to the constant C of each said axis.

16. The cursor controlling device as claimed in claim 15, wherein in said single operating mode, as the moving speed of the finger controlling element is over the low speed, the register with respect to the high speed section C2 is increased by at least a number N−

1, and another register with respect to the low speed section C1 is reduced by at least N−

2, thereby keeping the total moving value fixed to 1, wherein N≧

2.

17. A cursor controlling method, comprising the steps of:

(a) providing a cursor controlling device for detecting movement of a finger and generating digital data;

(b) setting ratio constants K1, K2, Kn;

setting maximum values C1, C2, Cn and initial values V1X1, V2X2, VnXn of respective registers corresponding to different speed sections, wherein a number of said registers is n and n>

=2;

(c) receiving digital data sent from the cursor controlling device;

(d) determining the speed of the data and which speed section the data corresponds to for each coordinate axis;

(e) adding the data value to the register corresponding to said speed section; and

(f) positioning the cursor based on the sum of the multiples of the respective ratio constants and values in said registers as display values, i.e., K1*V1X1+K2*V2X2+ Kn*VnXn.

18. A cursor controlling method as claimed in claim 17, wherein step (e) comprises the step of adding the data value to the register until a resultant value is at least equal to the maximum value and adding a remainder value to the other registers in any order.

19. A cursor controlling method as claimed in claim 17 or 18, further comprising the step of causing a data value in registers V1X1 approach to C1/2 when the speed of receiving data is within the higher speed section for each axis.

20. A cursor controlling method as claimed in claim 19, wherein the step is causing a data value in register V1X1 to approach C1/2 by adding N to register V1X1 while subtracting N from the registers responding to higher speed section, wherein N is integer.

21. A cursor controlling method comprising the steps of:

(a) providing a cursor controlling device for detecting movement of a finger and generating digital data;

(b) setting ratio constants K1, K2, Kn;

setting maximum values C1, C2, Cn and initial values V1X1, V2X2, VnXn of respective variables corresponding to different speed sections, wherein a number of said registers is n and n>

=2;

(c) receiving digital data sent from the cursor controlling device;

(d) determining the speed of the data and which speed section the data corresponds to for each coordinate axis;

(e) adding the data value to the variable corresponding to said speed section; and

(f) positioning the cursor based on the sum of the multiples of the respective constants and variables as display values, i.e., K1*V1X1+K2*V2X2+ Kn*VnXn.