System and methods for controlling automatic scrolling of information on a display screen

• US 6,421,064 B1
• Filed: 05/26/2000
• Issued: 07/16/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Jerome H. Lemelson, John H. Hiett
• Original Assignee: Jerome H. Lemelson, John H. Hiett
• Inventors: Lemelson, Jerome H., Hiett, John H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Cuchlinski, Jr., William A.
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, THU V
• Application Number:
  US09/579,817
• Time in Patent Office: 781 Days
• Field of Search: 345/688, 345/156, 345/157, 345/158, 345/159, 345/684, 345/973, 345/978, 351/208, 351/210, 704/271, 704/275
• US Class Current: 345/688
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 27/0093 with means for monitoring data relating to the user, e.g. head-tracking, eye-tracking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/013 Eye tracking input arrangements G06F3/015 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning

Abstract

A system for controlling the automatic scrolling of information includes a screen, a computer system, gimbaled sensor system for following and tracking the position and movement of the user'"'"'s head and user'"'"'s eye, and a scroll activating interface algorithm using a neural network to find screen gaze coordinates implemented by the computer system so that scrolling function is performance based upon the screen gaze coordinates of the user'"'"'s eye relative to a certain activation area on the screen. A method of controlling scrolling includes the acts of finding a screen gaze coordinates on the screen, determining whether the screen gaze coordinate is within at least one activated control region, and activating scrolling to provide a display of information when the gaze direction is within at least one activated control region.

Claims

1. The method of controlling automatic scrolling of information on a display or a screen wherein the acts of detecting a user that is closest to the display or the screen and focusing and magnifying a field of view of a camera on an eye of the user comprises:

reading raw image data of an image of the user into the computer system,

filtering the image of the user,

segmenting the raw image data,

forming clusters of the raw image data,

determining head clusters from the clusters of the raw image data,

determining eye regions of the head clusters,

determining an eye center of gravity for each of the eye regions,

adjusting a pan and a tilt of a camera for bringing an image center to the eye center,

calculating an area for the eye cluster, and

zooming the camera so that a large portion of an eye cluster is within a field of view of the camera.

2. The method of controlling automatic scrolling of information on a display or a screen including finding a screen gaze direction on the screen of the user, determining whether the gaze direction is within at least one activated control region, activating scrolling to provide a desired display of information when the gaze direction is within the activated control region;

wherein the act of determining whether the gaze direction is within a static region defined by at least one of a number of concentric circles and an activated control region defined by another of the number of concentric circles further comprises the acts of;

calculating a radius and an angle with respect to a center of the number of concentric circles to define a gaze vector,

calculating horizontal and vertical scroll rates based on the gaze vector, and

scrolling the information on the display or the screen in the horizontal and the vertical directions based on the calculated horizontal and vertical scroll rates.

3. A method of controlling automatic scrolling of information on a screen by a user comprising the acts of:

detecting a user that is closest to the screen;

focusing and magnifying a field of view of a camera on an eye of the user to provide a magnified image of the eye;

inputting the magnified image into a computer system;

determining physical coordinates of a center of a cornea of the eye and a glint center of the eye;

determining a vector between the center of the cornea and a glint center on the screen;

calculating gaze coordinates of the user on the screen;

sending the gaze coordinates to the computer system for processing by an application program for controlling the scrolling of information on the screen;

determining whether the gaze direction is within an activated control region defined by at least one of a number of concentric circles comprises the acts of;

calculating a radius and an angle with respect to a center of the number of concentric circles to define a gaze vector,

calculating horizontal and vertical scroll rates based on the gaze vector, and

scrolling the information on the display or the screen in the horizontal and the vertical directions based on the calculated horizontal and vertical scroll rates;

activating scrolling to provide a desired display of information when the gaze direction is within the activated control region.