Interactive input system, interactive board therefor and methods

• US 9,600,101 B2
• Filed: 03/31/2014
• Issued: 03/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Smart Technologies ULC (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Smart Technologies ULC (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Schanne, Tim, Tarng, Stanley, Ross, Evan, Barkley, Warren, Gaydon, Neil, Trenholm-Boyle, Michael, Sirotich, Roberto, Wright, Joe, McReynolds, Daniel P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Sternbane, Larry
• Assistant Examiner(s): Azari, Sepehr
• Application Number:
  US14/231,154
• Publication Number:
  US 20150277586A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,086 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04106 Multi-sensing digitiser, i.e. digitiser using at least two different sensing technologies simultaneously or alternatively, e.g. for detecting pen and finger, for saving power or for improving position detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04108 Touchless 2D- digitiser, i.e. digitiser detecting the X/Y position of the input means, finger or stylus, also when it does not touch, but is proximate to the digitiser's interaction surface without distance measurement in the Z direction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04807 Pen manipulated menu
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0308 comprising a plurality of distinctive and separately oriented light emitters or reflectors associated to the pointing device, e.g. remote cursor controller with distinct and separately oriented LEDs at the tip whose radiations are captured by a photo-detector associated to the screen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0325 using a plurality of light emitters or reflectors or a plurality of detectors forming a reference frame from which to derive the orientation of the object, e.g. by triangulation or on the basis of reference deformation in the picked up image
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03542 Light pens for emitting or receiving light
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03545 Pens or stylus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0383 Signal control means within the pointing device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0421 by interrupting or reflecting a light beam, e.g. optical touch-screen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0428 by sensing at the edges of the touch surface the interruption of optical paths, e.g. an illumination plane, parallel to the touch surface which may be virtual sensing beam interruptions in a planar beam grid of an optical touch-screen G06F3/0421
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04812 Interaction techniques based on cursor appearance or behaviour, e.g. being affected by the presence of displayed objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

An interactive board comprises an interactive surface; at least one user selectable element; and processing structure in communication with at least one imaging device and configured to process data received from said at least one imaging device to locate at least one pointer positioned in proximity with said interactive surface and update digital ink according to pointer location, said processing structure being further configured to send said digital ink to one or more devices in communication with the interactive board in response to selection of said at least one user selectable element.

Claims

1. An interactive board comprising:

an interactive surface;

at least one imaging device;

at least one illumination source proximate the periphery of said interactive surface;

at least one user selectable element; and

processing structure in communication with the at least one imaging device and the at least one illumination source, the processing structure configured to process data received from said at least one imaging device to locate at least one pointer positioned in proximity with said interactive surface and update digital ink according to pointer location,

wherein—

the at least one imaging device is configured to capture a first image frame and a second image frame within an operation cycle,

the first image frame is captured with the at least one illumination source turned on,

the second image frame is captured with the at least one illumination source turned off,

after detecting illumination provided by the at least one pointer at the pointer location within the second image frame, the processing structure updates the digital ink by generating digital ink corresponding to the pointer location;

after detecting no illumination provided by the at least one pointer at the pointer location within the first image frame, the processing structure updates the digital ink by erasing digital ink corresponding to the pointer location; and

said processing structure being further configured to send said digital ink to one or more devices in communication with the interactive board in response to selection of said at least one user selectable element.

2. The interactive board of claim 1, wherein the interactive surface is dry-erase marker ink compatible.

3. The interactive board of claim 2, wherein the digital ink corresponds with dry-erase marker ink on the interactive surface.

4. The interactive board of claim 2, further comprising:

one or more pen tools, each pen tool configured to apply dry-erase marker ink to said interactive surface.

5. The interactive board of claim 4, wherein each pen tool is configured to provide illumination when applying dry-erase marker ink to said interactive surface.

6. The interactive board of claim 4, further comprising a tool tray for supporting each pen tool.

7. The interactive board of claim 1, wherein said processing structure is configured to send said digital ink to a printer for printing, to a USB storage device for storage, or to both in response to selection of said at least one user selectable element.

8. The interactive board of claim 1, further comprising a control bar, said control bar comprising a plurality of user selectable elements, each user selectable element being associated with a different function.

9. The interactive board of claim 8, wherein said user selectable elements are associated with power, printing, storage and data transmission functions.

10. The interactive board of claim 8, wherein said control bar is located on said interactive surface or on frame structure surrounding said interactive surface.

11. The interactive board of claim 1, wherein said processing structure is configured to communicate with one or more wireless computing devices over a wireless communication session.

12. The interactive board of claim 11, wherein said processing structure is configured, during the wireless communication session, to automatically send digital ink to one or more wireless computing devices.

13. The interactive board of claim 12, wherein said processing structure is configured, during the wireless communication session, to continuously send digital ink to one or more wireless computing devices.

14. The interactive board of claim 11, further comprising at least one of a quick response (QR) code label and a near field communication (NFC) label encoding wireless link information.

15. The interactive board of claim 14, wherein the wireless link information is usable by each wireless computing device for establishing the wireless communication session with the processing structure.

16. An interactive input system comprising the interactive board according to claim 11 and one or more wireless communication devices in communication with the interactive board over a wireless communication session.

17. The interactive input system of claim 16, wherein said processing structure is configured, during the wireless communication session, to automatically send digital ink to one or more wireless computing devices.

18. The interactive input system of claim 17, wherein said processing structure is configured, during the wireless communication session, to continuously send digital ink to one or more wireless computing devices.

19. The interactive input system of claim 16, wherein at least one of said one or more wireless computing devices is configured to forward digital ink to at least one of a networked device and a cloud storage service.

20. The interactive input system of claim 16, wherein at least one of said one or more wireless computing devices is configured to automatically send digital ink at periodic intervals to said networked device, to said cloud storage service, or to both.

21. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause an interactive board at least to:

process data received from at least one operation cycle of at least one imaging device to locate at least one pointer positioned in proximity with an interactive surface, wherein the operation cycle includes a first image frame captured with at least one illumination source of the interactive board turned on and a second image frame captured with the at least one illumination source of the interactive board turned off;

update digital ink according to pointer location by;

generating, after detecting illumination provided by the at least one pointer at the pointer location within the second image frame, digital ink corresponding to the pointer location; and

erasing, after detecting no illumination provided by the at least one pointer at the pointer location within the first image frame, digital ink corresponding to the pointer location; and

when a user selectable element of said interactive board is selected, send said digital ink to one or more devices in communication with the interactive board.

22. A wireless computing device comprising memory storing instructions and one or more processors communicating with the memory and executing the instructions to cause the wireless computing device at least to:

process information on an interactive board to obtain wireless link information;

establish a wireless communication session with the interactive board using the wireless link information; and

display digital ink received from said interactive board over said wireless communication session on a display, wherein updates to the digital ink are transmitted during said wireless communication session, the updates including;

generating digital ink corresponding to a pointer location after detecting illumination provided by a pointer at the pointer location within a first image frame of an operation cycle of at least one image device captured with at least one illumination source of the interactive board in a first state; and

erasing digital ink corresponding to the pointer location after detecting no illumination provided by the pointer at the pointer location within a second image frame of the operation cycle of the at least one imaging device captured with the at least one illumination source of the interactive board in a second state.

23. The wireless computing device of claim 22, wherein the information is at least a near field communication (NFC) label on the interactive board.

24. The wireless computing device of claim 22, wherein—

the information is at least a near field communication (NFC) label that encodes;

an uniform resource locator (URL) comprising a Wi-Fi MAC address and a Bluetooth MAC address of a general purpose computing device connected to the interactive board, and

a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) address for a webpage that prompts the user to download and install a wireless communication application;

the processing is done automatically using an NFC communication application that decodes the URL when the wireless computing device is in proximity with the NFC label; and

the establishing includes;

if a wireless communication application is installed on the wireless computing device, launching the wireless communication application,

if the wireless communication application is not installed on the wireless computing device, directing the wireless computing device to open a browser window displaying the webpage corresponding to the HTTP address encoded in the NFC label, and

directing the wireless computing device to establish a wireless communication session with the general purpose computing device using the wireless link information.

25. The wireless computing device of claim 24, wherein the wireless communication application includes:

an optical character recognition (OCR) engine that is configured to convert digital ink recognized as text to digital text; and

a function menu having—

a save function selectable element that, when selected, causes the wireless computing device to save at least one of digital ink and digital text as a digital ink file,

an email function selectable element that, when selected, causes the wireless computing device to send the digital ink file in an email to one or more specified email addresses,

an automatic cloud storage function selectable element that, when enabled, causes the wireless computing device to automatically send the digital ink file at period time intervals to an address of a cloud storage system for storage, and

an automatic networked device forward function that, when enabled, causes the wireless computing device to automatically send the digital ink file at period time intervals to a network address of a network device for at least one of viewing and storage.