Scrolling and zooming of a portable device display with device motion

• US 10,095,316 B2
• Filed: 10/17/2016
• Issued: 10/09/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Will John Temple
• Original Assignee: Will John Temple
• Inventors: Temple, Will John
• Primary Examiner(s): Olson, Jason C
• Application Number:
  US15/330,589
• Publication Number:
  US 20170068325A1
• Time in Patent Office: 722 Days
• Field of Search: 345660
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2200/1637 Sensing arrangement for detection of housing movement or orientation, e.g. for controlling scrolling or cursor movement on the display of an handheld computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04806 Zoom, i.e. interaction techniques or interactors for controlling the zooming operation
• 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 3/0346 with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a 3D space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/0407 Resolution change, inclusive of the use of different resolutions for different screen areas
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/045 Zooming at least part of an image, i.e. enlarging it or shrinking it
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2354/00 Aspects of interface with display user
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/34 for rolling or scrolling
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/346 for systems having a bit-mapped display memory
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/12 including a sensor for measuring a physical value, e.g. temperature or motion telephones including GPS signal receivers H04M2250/10

Abstract

A portable computing device (10) with a display screen (26) that may be scrolled and/or zoomed in response to changes in the spatial orientation of the computing device. Changes in the spatial orientation of the computing device are sensed by accelerometers (20) contained in the device. Software converts signals sent by the accelerometers to scrolling or zooming commands that scroll and/or zoom the display screen. Motion of the computing device in the plane of the display screen of the computing device results in scrolling the display screen in the opposing direction of the motion of the computing device a distance greater than the distance the computing device is moved. Motion of the computing device perpendicular to the plane of the display screen zooms the display screen in or out. Motion of the computing device toward the user results in the display screen being zoomed in to reveal greater detail. Motion of the computing device away from the user results in the display screen being zoomed out to reveal more content.

Claims

1. A computing device, comprising:

a display screen for displaying content of a visible program;

means for generating one or more acceleration signals;

memory for storing one or more programs;

one or more processors for executing the one or more programs stored in said memory, wherein the execution of the one or more programs cause the one or more processors to;

sample the one or more acceleration signals at a sample rate;

determine one or more time intervals between one or more current acceleration signals sampled and one or more last acceleration signals sampled;

establish one or more initial linear motion values, where the one or more initial linear motion values include an initial velocity value;

calculate one or more current linear motion values from at least one of the acceleration signals and one of the time intervals and a last velocity value, where the current linear motion values include a current velocity value;

determine one or more last linear motion values from the current linear motion values, where the one or more last linear motion values include a last velocity value;

determine a screen scrolling displacement value based on at least one of the current linear motion values;

change a view of the content displayed on the display screen based on the screen scrolling displacement value.

2. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the device further comprises an accelerometer and a gyroscope;

and a plurality of instructions to distinguish linear motion from rotational motion based on a plurality of signals outputted from the accelerometer and the gyroscope.

3. The computing device of claim 1, wherein changing the view comprises scrolling and zooming the content concurrently.

4. The computing device of claim 1, wherein changing the view comprises zooming.

5. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the acceleration signals comprise one or more acceleration values in the direction of one or more axes;

and the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to;

determine one or more velocities from the detected linear motion and the time interval and the last motion values; and

change the view of the content corresponding to the one or more determined velocities.

6. The computing device of claim 4, wherein the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to:

zoom-in the content displayed in response to detecting motion substantially perpendicular to and up from a surface of the display screen, and

zoom-out the content displayed in response to defecting motion substantially perpendicular to and down from the surface of the display screen.

7. The computing device of claim 1, wherein changing the view comprises scrolling.

8. The computing device of claim 7,

further comprising a virtual screen and a display buffer capable of buffering more content than can be displayed within the display screen;

the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to control the content written to the display screen from the buffer based at least on one of the current linear motion values, thereby enabling a user to interact with more content than can be displayed within the display screen.

9. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to:

detect a current linear motion of the display screen that exceeds a threshold value; and

resize one or more non-scrolling and non-zooming screen objects of the display screen in response to the detected current linear motion of the display screen that exceeds the threshold value, thereby enabling a user to view more of the content during at least one of a scrolling operation and a zooming operation.

10. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the scrolling is smooth, such that the content entering and leaving the display screen are not distinct blocks of content.

11. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to scroll the content by a scrolling displacement greater than the determined displacement of the display screen.

12. The computing device of claim 11, wherein a ratio of the scrolling displacement to the determined displacement of the display screen is scalable based upon one or more determined velocities;

whereby a linear motion of the display screen needed to view the entire content is reduced.

13. The computing device of claim 11, wherein a ratio of the scrolling displacement to the determined displacement of the display screen is scalable based upon the determined displacement of the display screen;

whereby a linear motion of the display screen needed to view the entire content is reduced.

14. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the computing device emits at least one of an auditory warning and tactile warning when the change in the view has reached a limit.

15. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to detect rotational motion of the display screen;

and

rotationally scroll one or more portions of the display screen in response to the detecting of the rotational motion, wherein the rotational motion is motion in the plane of the display screen.

16. The computing device of claim 15, wherein rotationally scrolling the portions of the display screen rotationally scrolls the content in an opposite rotational direction of the detected rotational motion.

17. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to temporarily override a current state of at least one of motion based scrolling and zooming in response to the device detecting a user input command for the device.

18. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to reset some initial motion values comprising at least one of velocity values and displacement values upon the device detecting a user input command for the device.

19. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to:

display a list of a plurality of programs or a plurality of program contents upon the device detecting a first user command; and

scroll the list corresponding to the determined screen scrolling displacement value; and

select a new current visible program or program content upon the device detecting a second user input command.

20. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the one or more programs further cause the one or more processors to:

detect a user input command comprising at least one of a button press of the device and a button release of the device and a touch of a touch screen display of the device and a releasing the touch of the touch screen display of the device;

detect linear motion that has exceeded a first threshold value;

determine a command for the device upon detecting the threshold value has been exceeded in combination with the detecting of the user input command; and

processing the command;

wherein the command for the device comprising continuously scrolling the content in a direction corresponding to a detected device motion, whereby some previously off-screen content is scrolled onto the display screen at a set rate.