USING A TOUCH SENSITIVE DISPLAY TO CONTROL MAGNIFICATION AND CAPTURE OF DIGITAL IMAGES BY AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE

• US 20110013049A1
• Filed: 07/17/2009
• Published: 01/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications USA Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Thörn, Karl Ola
• Granted Patent: US 8,723,988 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/240.3
• 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 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/22 including a touch pad, a touch sensor or a touch detector digitizers for touch screens G06F3/041
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/52 including functional features of a camera constructional features concerning the integration of cameras in portable phones H04M1/0264
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00307 with a mobile telephone apparatus constructional features of portable telephone sets H04M1/0202; mobile radio systems H04W84/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00352 Input means H04N1/00411 takes precedence; input arrangements for computers G06F3/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00381 Input by recognition or interpretation of visible user gestures manual input means, e.g. digitisers, writing tablets H04N1/00392; gesture input to computers G06F3/017; recognition algorithms G06V40/20
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00392 Other manual input means, e.g. digitisers or writing tablets
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00411 the display also being used for user input, e.g. touch screen
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/0044 for image preview or review, e.g. to help the user position a sheet
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2101/00 Still video cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/62 Control of parameters via user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/631 Graphical user interfaces [GUI] specially adapted for controlling image capture or setting capture parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/635 Region indicators; Field of view indicators
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/2628 Alteration of picture size, shape, position or orientation, e.g. zooming, rotation, rolling, perspective, translation

Abstract

An electronic device includes a touch sensitive display device, a camera device, and a processor that executes computer readable program code embodied in a computer readable storage medium. Some of the computer readable program code is configured to control magnification of a digital image from the camera device to generate a magnified digital image that is displayed on the display device in response to distance between at least two touch points detected relative to a surface of the display device. Some other computer readable program code is configured to initiate capture of the magnified digital image in response to cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points.

Claims

1. A computer program product for operating an electronic device including a camera device and a touch sensitive display device, the computer program product comprising:

a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied in the medium and comprising;

computer readable program code that is configured to control magnification of a digital image from the camera device to generate a magnified digital image that is displayed on the display device in response to distance between at least two touch points detected relative to a surface of the display device; and

computer readable program code that is configured to initiate capture of the magnified digital image in response to cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to initiate retrieval of the magnified digital image from a volatile memory and storage into a non-volatile memory in response to cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to initiate storage of the magnified digital image into a non-volatile memory in response to cessation of detection of any touch points on the surface of the display device.

4. The computer program product of claim 3, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to delay storage of the magnified digital image from the camera device into the non-volatile memory until expiration of a defined non-zero time delay after cessation of detection of any touch points on the surface of the display device to avoid blurring of the captured image due to residual movement of the camera device.

5. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to control a variable amount of optical zoom by the camera device in response to distance between the two detected touch points.

6. The computer program product of claim 5, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to control the camera device to dynamically vary its optical zoom in response to changing distances between the two detected touch points.

7. The computer program product of claim 5, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to control the camera device to provide increased optical zoom that is calculated in response to detection of three touch points that define three corresponding corner locations for the height and width of a magnification box that the user identifies by touch relative to the displayed digital image.

8. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to control magnification of the displayed digital image by enlarging a portion of the displayed digital image that is between the two detected touch points.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to enlarge a portion of the displayed digital image that is between the two detected touch points to fill the display device.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to respond to cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points by initiating cropping of the digital image to retain only a portion of the digital image that is within a box defined by the two detected touch points occurring before cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points.

11. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to control magnification of the digital image by controlling an aspect ratio of the displayed digital image in response to distances between the two detected touch points along a two dimensional coordinate grid that is defined relative to the surface of the display screen.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to respond to cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points by initiating cropping of the digital image to generate a cropped digital image having the aspect ratio that is defined by the two detected touch points occurring before cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points, and storage of the cropped digital image into a non-volatile memory.

13. The computer program product of claim 11, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to respond to cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points by initiating replacement of an originally displayed digital image with a replacement digital image having the aspect ratio that is defined by the two detected touch points occurring before cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points.

14. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to display on the display device a box having a size that is defined in response to locations of the two detected touch points and that visually identifies what portion of the displayed digital image will be magnified for display.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, further comprising computer readable program code that is configured to dynamically control the size of the displayed box to track changes in the distance between two touch points, and to initiate magnification of the digital image in response to cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points.

16. An electronic device comprising:

a camera device that generates a digital image of an external object;

a display device that is configured to display the digital image and to detect locations of at least two touch points relative to a surface of the display screen; and

a controller that is configured to control magnification of the digital image that is displayed on the display device in response to distance between the detected touch points, and to initiate capture of the magnified digital image in response to cessation of detection of at least one of the detected touch points.

17. The electronic device of claim 16, further comprising:

a non-volatile memory,

wherein the controller is further configured to initiate storage of the digital image from the camera device into the non-volatile memory in response to cessation of detection of at least one touch point on the display device.

18. The electronic device of claim 16, wherein:

the controller is further configured to control magnification of the digital image by controlling an amount of optical zoom by the camera device in response to distance between the two detected touch points.

19. The electronic device of claim 16, wherein:

the controller is further configured to crop the digital image to retain only a portion of the digital image that is within a box defined by the two detected touch points occurring before cessation of detection of at least one of the two touch points.

20. The electronic device of claim 16, wherein:

the controller is further configured to configured to control magnification of the digital image by controlling an aspect ratio of the displayed digital image in response to distances between the two detected touch points along a two dimensional coordinate grid that is defined relative to the surface of the display device.