METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TOUCHLESS USER INTERFACE CONTROL

• US 20070130547A1
• Filed: 12/01/2006
• Published: 06/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Navisense
• Original Assignee: Navisense
• Inventors: BOILLOT, MARC
• Application Number:
  US11/566,137
• Publication Number:
  US 20070130547A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/863
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/36 by graphic or iconic representation
• 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

Abstract

A sensing unit (110) and method (200) for touchless interfacing using finger signing is provided. The sensing unit can include a sensor element (113) for tracking a touchless finger sign, a pattern recognition engine (114) for tracing a pattern in the touchless finger sign, and a processor (115) for performing an action on an object in accordance with the at least one pattern. The object may be a cursor, an object handled by the cursor, or an application object. A finger sign can be an touchless finger movement for controlling an object, or a touchless writing of an alpha-numeric character that is entered in an object. The processor can visually or audibly present the pattern in response to a recognition of the finger sign.

Claims

1. A sign engine for controlling an object via touchless sensing comprising

a sensing unit that detects at least one touchless finger sign;

a pattern recognition engine operatively connected to the sensing unit that identifies at least one pattern in the touchless finger sign; and

a processor operatively coupled to the pattern recognition engine that performs an action on the object in accordance with the at least one pattern.

2. The sign engine of claim 1, wherein the processor visually presents the at least one pattern.

3. The sign engine of claim 1, wherein the processor audibly presents the at least one pattern.

4. The sign engine of claim 1, further comprising:

a voice recognition unit that captures a spoken utterance from a user and determines whether the at least one finger sign was correctly recognized in response to the spoken utterance.

5. The sign engine of claim 1, wherein the pattern recognition engine recognizes and authenticates a finger signature for a secure application.

6. The sign engine of claim 1, wherein the pattern recognition engine automatically completes a finger sign that is partially recognized.

7. A method for touchless interfacing using signing, the method comprising

detecting a touchless finger movement in a touchless sensing space;

identifying a finger sign from the touchless finger movement; and

performing a control action on an object in accordance with the finger sign.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising recognizing an alpha-numeric character, and providing the alpha-numeric character to an application.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of performing a control action includes issuing a single click, a double click, a scroll, a left click, a middle click, a right click, or a hold of the object.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of performing a control action includes adjusting a value of the object, selecting the object, moving the object, or releasing the object.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of performing a control action includes performing a hot-key combination in response to recognizing a finger sign.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of performing a control action includes expanding a view in response to a clockwise finger motion, and collapsing the view in response to a counter-clockwise finger motion.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the object is an audio control, a video control, a voice control, a media control, or a text control.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of performing a control action performs a cut-and-paste operation, a text highlight operation, a drag-and-drop operation, a shortcut operation, a file open operation, a file close operation, a toolbar operation, a palette selection, a paint operation, a custom key shortcut operation, or a menu selection operation corresponding to a menu entry item in a windows application program.

15. The method of claim 7, wherein a finger sign is a letter, a number, a circular pattern, a jitter motion, a sweep motion, a jitter motion, a forward projecting motion, a retracting motion, an accelerated sweep, or a constant velocity motion.

16. A method for touchless text entry via finger signing, comprising:

tracking a touchless finger movement in a touchless sensing space;

tracing out a pattern in accordance with the tracking; and

recognizing an alpha-numeric character from the pattern, wherein the pattern is a letter, a number, a symbol, or a word.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

presenting the alphanumeric character to a text messaging application or a phone dialing application.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising recognizing a finger signature and authenticating the finger signature.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the finger signature is a password that identifies a user.

20. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

recognizing when a user is having difficulty finger signing; and

presenting visual notations of finger signs for conveying finger sign examples to the user.