Optical pseudo trackball controls the operation of an appliance or machine
First Claim
1. Input apparatus for controlling the operation of an appliance, the input apparatus comprising:
- a housing containing the appliance;
absent from the appliance a keyboard for entry of separate keystrokes representing individual letters of the alphabet;
an image input aperture in the housing and against which a portion of the tip of one of the operator'"'"'s digits may be placed;
a light source disposed proximate the image input aperture and that emits light which illuminates a portion of the tip of the digit placed against the image input aperture;
an image exit surface optically coupled to the image input aperture and from which reflected light that is an image of the tip of the operator'"'"'s digit light may exit;
a motion transducer disposed proximate the image exit surface and that receives the image, from which the motion transducer creates pixelized representations comprising a newly sampled array, a previously sampled array and shifted versions of one of those arrays that are its nearest neighbor arrays, which one array and its nearest neighbor arrays are correlated with the non-shifted array to produce motion signals that correspond to motions in the directions of coordinate axes by the tip of the digit moving against the image input surface and that represent operator input to affect the operation of the appliance;
an appliance control circuit coupled to the motion signals, disposed internal to the appliance and that controls the operation of the appliance by altering the value of at least one appliance control parameter in accordance with motion of the tip of the digit against the image input aperture.
5 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An optical fingertip tracker, which may be a pseudo trackball, responds to the motion of the texture on one of the user'"'"'s digits pressed against an image input aperture to produce motion signals processed within an appliance to be controlled. The appliance may have a minimal GUI, such as an LCD display having only a modest number of low resolution pixel locations and/or preestablished characters or icons. An appliance control parameter is set or adjusted in response to translation ofthe fingertip along a particular axis. E.g., to enter a parameter value (volume) a changing bar graph can be displayed. The display might even be omitted; to set the tone control of an audio appliance it can be sufficient to simply adjust the tone until the result is as desired. A numeric display of control parameter digits may be desirable, as when moving the fingertip tunes a receiver. There can be several particular axes along which fingertip movement changes an associated appliance control parameter. Other appliances can include character recognition of input characters traced by the fingertip. A pressure sensitive switch coupled to the fingertip tracker can serve as a delimiting mechanism useful in ratification of interpreted results and in editing strings that have been input. Excursions is a loss-of-correlation signal can be detected and interpreted as tapping the image input aperture with the fingertip. Such “taps” and “double taps” can be defined, and have selected meanings associated therewith that may be used in conjunction with, or in place of, the pressure sensitive switch.
211 Citations
70 Claims
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1. Input apparatus for controlling the operation of an appliance, the input apparatus comprising:
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a housing containing the appliance;
absent from the appliance a keyboard for entry of separate keystrokes representing individual letters of the alphabet;
an image input aperture in the housing and against which a portion of the tip of one of the operator'"'"'s digits may be placed;
a light source disposed proximate the image input aperture and that emits light which illuminates a portion of the tip of the digit placed against the image input aperture;
an image exit surface optically coupled to the image input aperture and from which reflected light that is an image of the tip of the operator'"'"'s digit light may exit;
a motion transducer disposed proximate the image exit surface and that receives the image, from which the motion transducer creates pixelized representations comprising a newly sampled array, a previously sampled array and shifted versions of one of those arrays that are its nearest neighbor arrays, which one array and its nearest neighbor arrays are correlated with the non-shifted array to produce motion signals that correspond to motions in the directions of coordinate axes by the tip of the digit moving against the image input surface and that represent operator input to affect the operation of the appliance;
an appliance control circuit coupled to the motion signals, disposed internal to the appliance and that controls the operation of the appliance by altering the value of at least one appliance control parameter in accordance with motion of the tip of the digit against the image input aperture. - 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, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
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41. Input apparatus for controlling the operation of an appliance according to motion of the tip of an operator'"'"'s digit along a plurality of coordinate axes by (a) selecting an entry from within a displayed menu of choices and (b) adjusting the value of an appliance control parameter, the input apparatus comprising:
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a housing containing the appliance;
an image input aperture in the housing and against which a portion of the tip of one of the operator'"'"'s digits may be placed;
a light source disposed proximate the image input aperture and that emits light which illuminates a portion of the tip of the digit placed against the image input aperture;
an image exit surface optically coupled to the image input aperture and from which reflected light that is an image of the tip of the operator'"'"'s digit may exit;
a motion transducer disposed proximate the image exit surface and that receives the image, from which the motion transducer creates pixelized representations comprising a newly sampled array, a previously sampled array and shifted versions of one of those arrays that are its nearest neighbor arrays, which one array and its nearest neighbor arrays are correlated with the non-shifted array to produce motion signals that correspond to motions in the directions of coordinate axes by the tip of the digit moving against the image input aperture and that represent operator input to control the operation of the appliance;
an embedded system coupled to the motion signals and that directs the operation of the appliance in response to inputs made by an operator of the appliance;
the embedded system including a motion signal selector that examines corresponding instances of the first and second motion signals to determine if one thereofhas a magnitude larger than the other by a selected amount, and if so, construes the motion signal with the larger magnitude as input made by the operator while also construing the other motion signal as having a magnitude of zero;
a display coupled to the embedded system and that displays indicia corresponding to a menu of choices available to the operator for affecting the operation of the appliance;
the embedded system treating one of the construed motion signals as input made by the operator to select an entry in the menu by altering corresponding displayed indicia in accordance with that input; and
the embedded system treating the other construed motion signal as input made by the operator adjust the value of an appliance control parameter associated with the selected entry in the menu. - View Dependent Claims (42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62)
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46. Input apparatus for controlling the operation of an appliance according to motion of the tip of and operator'"'"'s digit along a plurality of coordinate axes by (a) selecting an entry from within a displayed menu of choices and (b) adjusting the value of an appliance control parameter, the input apparatus comprising:
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a housing containing the appliance;
an image input aperture in the housing and against which a portion of the tip of one of the operator'"'"'s digits may be placed;
a light source disposed proximate the image input aperture and that emits light which illuminates a portion of the tip of the digit placed against the image input aperture;
an image exit surface optically coupled to the image input aperture and from which reflected light that is an image of the tip of the operator'"'"'s digit may exit;
a motion transducer disposed proximate the image exit surface and that receives the image, from which the motion transducer creates pixelized representations comprising a newly sampled array, a previously sampled array and shifted versions of one of those arrays that are its nearest neighbor arrays, which one array and its nearest neighbor arrays are correlated with the non-shifted array to produce motion signals that correspond to motions in the directions of coordinate axes by the fingertip moving against the image input surface and that represent operator input to control the operation of the appliance;
an embedded system coupled to the motion signals and that directs the operation of the appliance in response to inputs made by an operator of the appliance;
the embedded system including a motion signal selector that examines corresponding instances of the first and second motion signals to determine if one thereof has a magnitude larger than the other by a selected amount, and if so, construes the motion signal with the larger magnitude as input made by the operator while also construing the other motion signal as having a magnitude of zero, and also examines the corresponding instances to determine if they have magnitudes that are of generally equal absolute value, and if so, construes the first and second motion signals as having magnitudes of zero while producing a third motion signal corresponding to motion of the tip of the digit along an axis inclined to the coordinate axes;
a display coupled to the embedded system and that displays indicia corresponding to a menu of choices available to the operator for affecting the operation of the appliance;
the embedded system treating one of the first and second construed motion signals as input made by the operator to select in the direction of the corresponding coordinate axis an entry in the menu by altering corresponding displayed indicia in accordance with that input, treating the other of the first and second construed motion signals as input made by the operator to select in the direction of the other coordinate axis another entry in the menu by altering corresponding displayed indicia in accordance with that input; and
the embedded system treating the third motion signal as input made by the operator adjust the value of an appliance control parameter associated with the selected entry in the menu.
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48. Character input apparatus for controlling the operation of an appliance, the character input apparatus comprising:
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a housing containing the appliance;
absent from the appliance a keyboard for entry of separate keystrokes representing individual letters of the alphabet and the numeric digits;
an image input aperture in the housing and against which a portion of the tip of one of the operator'"'"'s digits may be placed;
a light source disposed proximate the image input aperture and that emits light which illuminates a portion of the tip of the digit placed against the image input aperture;
an image exit surface optically coupled to the image input aperture and from which reflected light that is an image of the operator'"'"'s digit light may exit;
a motion transducer disposed proximate the image exit surface and that receives the image, from which the motion transducer creates pixelized representations comprising a newly sampled array, a previously sampled array and shifted versions of one of those arrays that are its nearest neighbor arrays, which one array and its nearest neighbor arrays are correlated with the non-shifted array to produce motion signals that correspond to motions in the directions of coordinate axes by the tip of the digit moving against the image input surface and that represent a character in the font and whose shape the operator has traced with the motion of his digit upon the imaging orifice;
the motion signals coupled to the embedded system;
the embedded system construing the motion signals as the character traced by the operator'"'"'s digit and altering the displayed indicia in accordance therewith; and
a display coupled to the embedded system and that displays characters input by the operator of the appliance.
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63. A method of setting the value of an appliance control parameter affecting the operation of an appliance, the method comprising the steps of:
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placing the tip of an operator'"'"'s digit against an imaging surface;
moving the tip of the digit across the imaging surface in patterns corresponding to user input;
illuminating that portion of the digit that is against the imaging surface;
focusing light reflected from the illuminated portion of the digit as an image onto an array of photo detectors that are part of a motion transducer;
digitizing the output values of the photo detectors and storing the digital results as a reference array in a memory;
subsequent to storing the reference array, digitizing the output values of the photo detectors and storing the digital results as a sample array in a memory;
correlating the sample array with the reference array and also with nearest neighbor shifted versions of one of those arrays array to produce a motion signal having a value indicative of motion along an axis by the tip of the digit as it moves across the imaging surface; and
setting the value of an appliance control parameter in accordance with the value of the motion signal. - View Dependent Claims (64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70)
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67. A method of controlling the operation of a machine having a control system responsive to input characters, the method comprising the steps of:
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placing a tip of an operator'"'"'s digit against an imaging surface;
moving the tip of the digit across the imaging surface in patterns corresponding to input characters;
illuminating that portion of the digit that is against the imaging surface;
focusing light reflected from the illuminated portion of the digit as an image onto an array of photo detectors that are part of a motion transducer;
producing motion signals with the motion transducer that are indicative of the motion of the tip of the digit against the imaging surface;
detecting with the control system patterned variations in the motion signals corresponding to input characters traced by the by the operator'"'"'s digit and that are to control the operation of the machine; and
operating the machine in accordance with the detected patterned variations in the motion signals.
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Specification