Three-dimensional mouse apparatus

• US 8,269,721 B2
• Filed: 05/08/2008
• Issued: 09/18/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Ming-Yen Lin
• Original Assignee: Ming-Yen Lin
• Inventors: Lin, Ming-Yen
• Primary Examiner(s): Mengistu, Amare
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rodriguez, Joseph G
• Application Number:
  US12/117,124
• Publication Number:
  US 20080278447A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,594 Days
• Field of Search: 345156-184
• US Class Current: 345/158
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0304 Detection arrangements using opto-electronic means constructional details of pointing devices not related to the detection arrangement using opto-electronic means G06F3/033; optical digitisers G06F3/042
• 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 3D mouse apparatus is disclosed in the present invention. The apparatus is mainly utilized to calculate, recognize, analyze and output the 3D gestures which include the physical quantity such as 3D position coordinate, displacement, velocity and acceleration of a point light source and the moving behavior of human hand, so as to achieve the purpose of 3D mouse apparatus.

Claims

1. A three-dimensional (3D) mouse apparatus, comprising:

a point light source device, mainly formed by a point light source for emitting a scattered light with arbitrary wavelength;

a 3D gesture reading and recognizing device, consisting of three sets of 1D optical imaging device, for periodically receiving said scattered light and calculating, analyzing, recognizing and outputting a 3D gesture signal in a fixed time period; and

an object point space, being a maximum space range provided for the movement of said point light source device;

wherein said 3D gesture reading and recognizing device, comprises;

three sets of 1D optical imaging device, for individually outputting an image pixel position signal I_s3 after receiving the scattered light of said point light source device, and for synchronously driving the scanning process of said three sets of 1D optical imaging device by receiving a synchronous control signal; and

a gesture analysis device, for calculating, analyzing, recognizing and outputting a 3D gesture signal in a fixed time period after receiving the image pixel position signal I_s3 and for outputting a synchronous control signal, so as to synchronously drive the scanning process of said three sets of 1D optical imaging device;

wherein said three sets of 1D optical imaging device, comprises;

an optical filtering element, for receiving the scattered light of said point light source device, and emitting a scattered light after filtering the background light;

a 1D optical lens module, composed of optical lens having 1D focusing capability, and the optical axis of said 1D optical lens module is disposed at Z_j axis of image coordinate system, for transforming said scattered light into a stripe typed beam which is focused to form a line image on said 1D optical image sensor; and

a 1D optical image sensor, composed of M×

1 pixels with a pixel width Δ

_w, for receiving said line image and individually outputting the image pixel signal from the first pixel to the M-th pixel by analog voltage, wherein the center of said sensor is disposed at the origin of the image coordinate system and its longer axis is set parallel to the Y_j axis of the image coordinate system;

an image reading and processing device, being a microcomputer system, so as to achieve the purpose of said scanning process, and for outputting said image pixel position signal I_s3 which is analyzed and obtained by said image processing procedure after said image pixel signal is recorded in said memory, and for receiving a synchronous control signal which is used to synchronously driving said scanning process so that said image pixel signal can be fetched synchronously by said three sets of 1D optical imaging device.

2. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein said point light source device comprises:

a battery, for supplying an electric power to an illuminating element and a power control circuit;

said illuminating element, composed of a plurality of semiconductor laser diodes or LEDs, for emitting a visible light or an invisible light;

said power control circuit, composed of an electronically controlled circuit and a switch, and connected to said battery and said illuminating element, for controlling the power supply of said battery and the brightness of said illuminating element;

an optical scattering element, composed of spherical lens with a short focus length, for receiving and focusing an emitting light from said illuminating element, so as to output a scattered light with a larger divergent angle;

a pin-hole element, composed of an optical element having an aperture which is disposed on the focal plane of said optical scattering element, for reducing the scattering light deviated from the focus point by changing the size of said aperture, so as to produce a scattering light source which is close to a point light source; and

a mechanical device, for affixing said power control circuit, said battery, said illuminating element, said optical scattering element, and said pin-hole element.

3. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein said image pixel position signal I_s3, said synchronous control signal and said 3D gesture signal is transmitted by a wireless transmission or a cable.

4. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein said image processing procedure is Fourier image processing.

5. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein the image processing procedure of said image reading and processing device is used to eliminate the background light and analyze and obtain the brightest pixel position in the image pixel signal, wherein said brightest pixel position is the image pixel position signal I_s3.

6. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein said gesture analyzing device, comprises:

a microcomputer system, for periodically outputting a 3D gesture signal at an time interval which is calculated, analyzed and recognized by said error correction process and gesture analyzing process after receiving said three image pixel position signals I_s3, and for outputting a synchronous control signal so that said image pixel signals can be synchronously scanned and acquired by said three sets of 1D optical imaging device; and

an interface, being a generic standard interface, for receiving and converting said 3D gesture signal to an electrical signal complying with said generic standard interface and outputting said 3D gesture signal.

7. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 6, wherein said 3D gesture signal comprises a physical quantity signal and a gesture signal.

8. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 7, wherein said physical quantity signal is the 3D position coordinate, displacement, velocity, and acceleration of said point light source device in object point space.

9. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 7, wherein said gesture signal is composed of a plurality of consecutive gesture units, wherein said single gesture unit is composed of three consecutive physical states.

10. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 9, wherein said temporary hold state is defined by maintaining a still state for said point light source device within the time frame of t₁≦

t≦

t₁+Δ

t_hold, namely |r₁(t)−

r₁(t₁)|<

δ

r, where Δ

t_hold δ

r are a variable and relatively small but larger-than-zero value.

11. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 9, wherein said specific movement state is defined by that said point light source device moves from said state 1 to state 3 by a specific defined movement state within the time frame of t₁+Δ

t_hold<

t<

t₂, wherein said specific defined movement state can be a straight-line movement, or a curve movement, or a back-and-forth movement.

12. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 9, wherein said temporary hold state 3 is defined by maintaining a still state for said point light source device within the time frame of t₂≦

t≦

t₂+Δ

t_hod, namely, |r₂(t)−

r₂(t₂)|<

δ

r, where Δ

t_hold δ

r are a variable and relatively small but larger-than-zero value.

13. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 8, wherein said 3D position coordinate (x₁, y₁, z₁) can be obtained by the following equations:

(y_s1 sin θ

−

f cos θ

)x₁+(f sin θ

+y_s1 cos θ

)z₁=(−

h sin θ

+f)y_s1+hf cos θ

;

fy₁+y_s2z₁=y_s2f;

(y_s3 sin θ

+f cos θ

)x₁+(f sin θ

−

y_s3 cos θ

)z₁=(h sin θ

−

f)y_s3+hf cos θ

;

wherein

y_s1(I_s1−

I₀)×

ω

;

y_s2(t_i)=(I_s2−

I₀)×

Δ

ω

;

y_s3(I_s3−

I₀)×

Δ

Δ

ω

;

14. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein the maximum space range for said object point space is defined by (X_min, Y_min, Z_min) and (X_max, Y_max, Z_max) and the center of said object point space is located at the convergent point V(X_V, Y_V, Z_V).

15. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 6, wherein said error correction process is a 3D interpolation correction process, and said process comprises:

a space division process, for dividing said object point space into equivalent sub-space as follows;

X_i=Δ

Y×

i+X_min, wherein

16. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 6, wherein said generic standard interface is USB.

17. The 3D mouse apparatus as set forth in claim 6, wherein said time interval is the line scanning time interval or the integral times of line scanning time interval, wherein said line scanning time interval is the time frame for scanning and acquiring all image pixel signal of said 1D optical image sensor.