Light-based finger gesture user interface

• US 8,884,926 B1
• Filed: 07/15/2014
• Issued: 11/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Neonode, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Neonode, Inc.
• Inventors: Eriksson, Thomas, Leine, Per, Laveno Mangelsdorff, Jochen, Pettersson, Robert, Jansson, Anders, Goertz, Magnus
• Primary Examiner(s): CERULLO, LILIANA P
• Application Number:
  US14/331,288
• Publication Number:
  US 20140333558A1
• Time in Patent Office: 119 Days
• Field of Search: 345173-184, 178 1801- 2004, 36137901-67929
• US Class Current: 345/175
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1616 with folding flat displays, e.g. laptop computers or notebooks having a clamshell configuration, with body parts pivoting to an open position around an axis parallel to the plane they define in closed position
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1643 the display being associated to a digitizer, e.g. laptops that can be used as penpads details related to the relative motion of the display enclosure with respect to the body enclosure, e.g. to move between laptop and tablet PC configuration G06F1/1615
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/169 the I/O peripheral being an integrated pointing device, e.g. trackball in the palm rest area, mini-joystick integrated between keyboard keys, touch pads or touch stripes G06F1/1643 takes precedence; constructional details of pointing devices G06F3/033
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/0339 Touch strips, e.g. orthogonal touch strips to control cursor movement or scrolling; single touch strip to adjust parameter or to implement a row of soft keys
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04806 Zoom, i.e. interaction techniques or interactors for controlling the zooming operation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0412 Digitisers structurally integrated in a display
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0421 by interrupting or reflecting a light beam, e.g. optical touch-screen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04815 Interaction with a metaphor-based environment or interaction object displayed as three-dimensional, e.g. changing the user viewpoint with respect to the environment or object
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

A finger gesture user interface for an electronic device, including a housing for an electronic device including a front opening in a front outer surface of the housing, a rear opening in a rear outer surface of the housing, and inner sidewalls extending from the front opening to the rear opening to form a cavity, a display, mounted in the housing along a plane transverse to the front and rear openings, for rendering a 3D realm, a detector mounted in the inner sidewalls, operable to detect translation of a finger inserted in the cavity along a dimension of the cavity transverse to the display plane, and a processor connected to the detector and to the display for interpreting the detected finger translation as a user interface input command to move within the 3D realm along the dimension transverse to the display.

Claims

1. A finger gesture user interface for an electronic device, comprising:

a housing for an electronic device comprising;

a front opening in a front outer surface of the housing;

a rear opening in a rear outer surface of the housing; and

inner sidewalls extending from said front opening to said rear opening to form a cavity;

a display, mounted in said housing along a plane transverse to said front and rear openings, for rendering a three-dimensional (3D) realm;

a detector mounted in said inner sidewalls, operable to detect translation of a finger inserted in the cavity along a dimension of the cavity transverse to the display plane; and

a processor connected to said detector and to said display for interpreting the detected finger translation as a user interface input command to move within the 3D realm along the dimension transverse to the display.

2. The user interface of claim 1, wherein said housing comprises first and second sections connected by a hinge that enables folding the two sections onto each other, wherein said display is mounted in said first section and the cavity is located in said second section within a frame that fits around the edges of said first section when the sections are folded, and wherein said display is oriented along the plane transverse to said front and rear openings when the sections are unfolded.

3. The user interface of claim 1, wherein said detector is further operable to detect at least-five location and orientation attributes in response to the finger being inserted inside the cavity;

namely,

(i) location along an x-axis;

(ii) location along a y-axis;

(iii) location along a z-axis;

(iv) polar angle in the xz-plane; and

(v) polar angle in the yz-plane,

wherein the locations and polar angles are with reference to x and y axes along the length and width of the front opening of the cavity and to a z axis along the height of the cavity from front to rear.

4. The user interface of claim 1, wherein said detector is further operable to detect a multi-finger spread gesture and a multi-finger pinch gesture inside the cavity.

5. The user interface of claim 4, wherein said processor interprets the detected multi-finger spread gesture as a user interface input command to open a widget, document, web page, album or photograph.

6. The user interface of claim 4, wherein said processor interprets the detected multi-finger pinch gesture as a user interface input command to close an open widget, document, web page, album or photograph.

7. The user interface of claim 1, wherein said detector is further operable to detect a speed of insertion of the finger along the height of the cavity from front to rear, and wherein an attribute of the user interface input command is configured according to the speed.

8. The user interface of claim 1, wherein said detector is further operable to detect two polar angles of the finger inside the cavity with reference to x and y axes along the length and width of the front opening of the cavity and to a z axis along the height of the cavity from front to rear, namely,

(i) polar angle in the xz-plane;

and

(ii) polar angle in the yz-plane,

and wherein said processor interprets changes in the polar angles as user interface input commands.

9. The user interface of claim 8, wherein a gesture comprising tilting the finger inside the cavity causes said display to render a pop-up menu.

10. The user interface of claim 1, wherein said detector is further operable to detect a multi-finger rotation gesture inside the cavity.

11. The user interface of claim 10, wherein said processor causes said display to render a rotation of a displayed image, in response to said detector detecting the multi-finger rotation gesture.