Interactive apparatuses with tactiley enhanced visual imaging capability and related methods
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- a touch sensitive visual display including a flexible visual display layer, a touch sensitive layer, and a tactile display layer, the flexible visual display layer configured to render visual images using a matrix of pixels, the touch sensitive layer, having a hollowed effective area, configured to provide touch sensing for non-tactilely enhanced visual images, and the tactile display layer, having an effective core area substantially aligned with the ineffective area of the touch sensitive layer, configured to tactilely enhance at least a portion of the rendered visual images using pistons and to detect contact with the rendered tactilely enhanced visual images;
a first display driver to control selective activation/deactivation of the pixels of the flexible visual display layer to facilitate rendering of visual images on the flexible visual display layer; and
a second display driver to control the pistons of the tactile display layer to facilitate complementary selective tactile indenting of different portions of a part of the flexible visual display layer that is complimentary to the effective core area of the tactile display layer, said selective tactile indenting to tactilely enhance at least a part of at least one of the rendered visual images.
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Abstract
An interactive apparatus is provided with a display, on which tactilely enhanced (TE) visual images may be rendered, to temporally realize a wide range of user input keys and/or user selectable menu/list items. In one embodiment, the display includes a flexible visual display layer and a tactile display layer, and the apparatus includes corresponding device drivers for controlling rendering on the respective layers. In one embodiment, the apparatus is further provided with graphics functions, which generate in response to a request to render a TE visual image, pixel and piston data of the TE visual image, in accordance with an image specification of the TE visual image, having tactile attributes of the tactile enhancements.
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Citations
39 Claims
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1. An apparatus comprising:
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a touch sensitive visual display including a flexible visual display layer, a touch sensitive layer, and a tactile display layer, the flexible visual display layer configured to render visual images using a matrix of pixels, the touch sensitive layer, having a hollowed effective area, configured to provide touch sensing for non-tactilely enhanced visual images, and the tactile display layer, having an effective core area substantially aligned with the ineffective area of the touch sensitive layer, configured to tactilely enhance at least a portion of the rendered visual images using pistons and to detect contact with the rendered tactilely enhanced visual images; a first display driver to control selective activation/deactivation of the pixels of the flexible visual display layer to facilitate rendering of visual images on the flexible visual display layer; and a second display driver to control the pistons of the tactile display layer to facilitate complementary selective tactile indenting of different portions of a part of the flexible visual display layer that is complimentary to the effective core area of the tactile display layer, said selective tactile indenting to tactilely enhance at least a part of at least one of the rendered visual images. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A method comprising:
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receiving a request for a graphics operation to render a visual image; determining if the visual image is to be tactilely enhanced; and if the visual image is to be tactilely enhanced, generating in response, a plurality of pixel and piston data for said tactilely enhanced visual image to be rendered, the pixel data for use by a flexible visual display layer of a display and piston data for use by a tactile display layer of the display, the tactile display layer having a effective core area corresponding to an ineffective area of a touch sensitive layer of the display. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
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32. An apparatus comprising:
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display means for displaying tactilely enhanced visual images and for detecting contact with the displayed tactilely enhanced visual images; first control means for controlling selective activation/deactivation of pixels to facilitate rendering of visual images, the first control means controlling selective activation/deactivation of pixels to be made on a flexible visual display layer of the display; and second control means for controlling complementary selective tactile enhancements of selected ones of the rendered visual images, the second control means controlling selective tactile enhancements to be made on an effective core area of a tactile display layer of the display, the effective core area corresponding to an ineffective area of a touch sensitive layer of the display.
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33. An article of manufacture comprising:
a storage medium having a plurality of programming instructions stored therein, the plurality of programming instructions adapted to program an apparatus to receive a request for a graphics operation to render a tactilely enhanced visual image; determine if the visual image is to be tactilely enhanced; and if the visual image is to be tactilely enhanced, generate in response, a plurality of pixel and piston data for said tactilely enhanced visual image to be rendered, the pixel data for use by a flexible visual display layer of a display and the piston data for use by a tactile display layer of the display, the tactile display layer having a effective core area corresponding to an ineffective area of a touch sensitive layer of the display. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39)
Specification