Multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens

• US 20110221701A1
• Filed: 03/10/2011
• Published: 09/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/10/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: FocalTech Systems Co.,Ltd
• Original Assignee: FocalTech Systems Co.,Ltd
• Inventors: Guo, Yan, Zhang, Jingkai, Mo, Lianghua
• Application Number:
  US13/065,024
• Publication Number:
  US 20110221701A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04104 Multi-touch detection in digitiser, i.e. details about the simultaneous detection of a plurality of touching locations, e.g. multiple fingers or pen and finger
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0418 for error correction or compensation, e.g. based on parallax, calibration or alignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04186 Touch location disambiguation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/044 by capacitive means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0446 using a grid-like structure of electrodes in at least two directions, e.g. using row and column electrodes

Abstract

This invention discloses a multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens, which includes the following steps: conducting scan detection of capacitance of the rows and columns of a touch screen matrix to respectively acquire the capacitance data of the rows and columns of the touch screen matrix; acquiring an initial capacitance threshold value and calculating capacitance value of each row and each column by subtracting the initial capacitance threshold value from the capacitance data of each row and each column respectively; judging whether a curved section with a capacitance value of more than zero exists in the calculated capacitance value curve of the rows and columns; if so, the gravity center point of each curved section with a calculated capacitance value of more than zero is taken as the contact point coordinate corresponding to the curved section; if not, no touch is made; and the column coordinate and the row coordinate of each contact point is sent to a processor for processing. This invention reduces the volume of data with processing necessity, decreases the load of the processor, improves the anti-interference performance of a system to a certain extent, and also lowers the probability of wrong touch.

Claims

1. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens, characterized in that the method includes the following steps:

101) conducting scan detection of capacitance of the rows and columns of a touch screen matrix to respectively acquire capacitance data of the rows and columns of the touch screen matrix;

102) acquiring an initial capacitance threshold value and calculating capacitance value of each row and each column by subtracting the initial capacitance threshold value from the capacitance data of each row and each column respectively;

103) judging whether a curved section with a capacitance value of more than zero exists in the calculated capacitance value curves of the rows and columns;

if so, the gravity center point of each curved section with a calculated capacitance value of more than zero is taken as the contact point coordinate corresponding to the curved section;

if not, no touch is made;

104) the column coordinate and the row coordinate of each contact point is sent to the processor for processing.

2. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens as specified in claim 1, characterized in that each row and each column of the touch screen matrix have a respective initial capacitance threshold value.

3. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens as specified in claim 2, characterized in that the capacitance threshold value of each row of the touch screen matrix is the sum of the scanning capacitance value of such row and the increment of row capacitance value, and the capacitance threshold value of each column is the sum of the scanning capacitance value of such column and the increment of column capacitance value, in which the scanning capacitance value is the capacitance value under circumstance where no touch is imposed on the rows or the columns of the touch screen matrix.

4. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens as specified in claim 3, characterized in that under the circumstance of having no touch, the capacitance threshold value is updated once the touch screen matrix scans a cycle.

5. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens as specified in claim 1, characterized in that, in Step 103, after the existence of the curved section with a capacitance value of more than zero in the calculated capacitance value curve of the rows and columns is judged, the highest point of each curved section with a capacitance value of more than zero is firstly sought through gradual increase of the capacitance threshold value, capacitance value curved sections on both sides of the highest point are retained according to a default width value, and then the gravity center point of each calculated capacitance value curved section is taken as the contact point coordinate corresponding to the curved section.

6. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens as specified in claim 5, characterized in that when the row coordinate and the column coordinate of two neighboring contact points are closer than the default coordinate threshold value, the coordinates of such two neighboring contact points are combined into the coordinates of the touch points as per the arithmetic mean.

7. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens as specified in claim 6, characterized in that under the circumstance of having only one touch point, the movement of such a touch point on a screen is judged to be the panning movements of an image.

8. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens as specified in claim 6, characterized in that when the straight-line distance between two given touch points changes, it is judged to zoom an image;

and when one given touch point revolves around the other given touch point, it is judged to rotate an image.

9. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens as specified in claim 8, characterized in that, in case that two given touch points revolve relatively while the straight-line distance between such two given touch points changes, if the angle of rotation is smaller than the default value, it is judged to zoom an image;

if the angle of rotation is larger than the default value, it is judged to rotate an image.

10. A multi-touch detection method for capacitive touch screens as specified in claim 8, characterized in that, in case that one of two given touch points does not move and the other point moves, if the moving direction of the moving touch point forms an included angle smaller than the default angle with the connecting line between such two given touch points, it is judged to zoom an image;

if the moving direction of the moving touch point forms an included angle larger than the default value with the connecting line between such two given touch points, it is judged to rotate an image.