Hand Gesture Recognition Method for Touch Panel and Associated Apparatus

• US 20110242025A1
• Filed: 03/21/2011
• Published: 10/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ili Technology Corp. (MediaTek, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MStar Semiconductor Incorporated (MediaTek, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wen, Chao-Cheng, Lin, Tsung-Fu
• Granted Patent: US 9,128,603 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• 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 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 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

A hand gesture recognition method according to the present disclosure is applied to a touch panel comprising a plurality of sensors, each of which generating a sensing value according to a touch operation. The method includes providing a first reference value and a second reference value; generating a count value by counting a quantity of the sensing values that are greater than a threshold; determining the touch operation as a first hand gesture when the count value is greater than the first reference value but smaller than the second reference value; and determining the touch operation as a second hand gesture when the count value is greater than the second reference value.

Claims

1. A hand gesture recognition method applied to a touch panel comprising a plurality of sensors, each of the sensors generating a respective sensing value according to a touch operation, the method comprising:

providing a first reference value, a second reference value, and a threshold value;

generating a count value by counting a quantity of the sensing values that are greater than the threshold value;

determining the touch operation as a first hand gesture when the count value is greater than the first reference value but smaller than the second reference value; and

determining the touch operation as a second hand gesture when the count value is greater than the second reference value.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

providing a reference threshold value that is greater than the second reference value; and

determining the touch operation as an error operation when the count value is greater than the reference threshold value.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the reference threshold value is equal to a number representative of a quantity of the sensors.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

activating a definition mode to perform the touch operation corresponding to the first hand gesture; and

generating the second reference value according to the count value.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, the sensors comprising a first sensor group that generate a plurality of first sensing values in a first direction and a second sensor group that generate a plurality of second sensing values in a second direction, the method further comprising:

generating the count value according to a number representative of a quantity of the first sensing values greater than the threshold value when a quantity of sensors in the first sensor group is greater than a quantity of sensors in the second sensor group.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the sensors comprise a first sensor group that generate a plurality of first sensing values in a first direction and a second sensor group that generate a plurality of second sensing values in a second direction, and wherein generating the count value comprises:

counting a quantity of the first sensing values that are greater than the threshold value to generate a first direction count value;

counting a quantity of the second sensing values that are greater than the threshold value to generate a second direction count value; and

regarding the first direction count value as the count value when the first direction count value is greater than the second direction count value, and regarding the second direction count value as the count value when the first direction count value is smaller than the second direction count value.

7. A hand gesture recognition apparatus applied to a touch panel comprising a plurality of sensors, each of the sensors generating a respective sensing value according to a touch operation, the apparatus comprising:

a storage that stores a first reference value, a second reference value, and a threshold value;

a counter that generates a counter value by counting a quantity of the sensing values that are greater than the threshold value; and

a determining unit that determines the touch operation as a first hand gesture when the count value is greater than the first reference value but smaller than the second reference value, and that determines the touch operation as a second hand gesture when the count value is greater than the second reference value.

8. The hand gesture recognition apparatus as recited in claim 7, wherein the storage further stores a reference threshold value greater than the second reference value, and wherein the determining unit determines the touch operation as an error operation when the count value is greater than the reference threshold value.

9. The hand gesture recognition apparatus as recited in claim 8, wherein the reference threshold value is equal to a number representative of a quantity of the sensors.

10. The hand gesture recognition apparatus as recited in claim 7, wherein the sensors comprise a first sensor group that generate a plurality of first sensing values in a first direction and a second sensor group that generate a plurality of second sensing values in a second direction, and wherein the counter generates the count value according to a quantity of the first sensing values that are greater than the threshold value when a number representative of a quantity of the sensors in the first sensor group is greater than a number representative of a quantity of the sensors in the second sensor group.

11. The hand gesture recognition apparatus as recited in claim 7, wherein the sensors comprises a first sensor group that generate a plurality of first sensing values in a first direction and a second sensor group that generate a plurality of second sensing values in a second direction, and wherein the counter counts a quantity of the first sensing values that are greater than the threshold value to generate a first direction count value, counts a quantity of the second sensing values that are greater than the threshold value to generate a second direction count value, regards the first direction count value as the count value when the first direction count value is greater than the second direction count value, and regards the second direction count value as the count value when the first direction count value is smaller than the second direction count value.