Touch and stylus discrimination and rejection for contact sensitive computing devices

• US 9,244,545 B2
• Filed: 06/21/2012
• Issued: 01/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Hinckley, Kenneth Paul, Benko, Hrvoje, Bathiche, Steven, Dietz, Paul Henry, Gupta, Anoop
• Primary Examiner(s): Gaffin, Jeffrey A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Traktovenko, Ilya
• Application Number:
  US13/530,015
• Publication Number:
  US 20120262407A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,314 Days
• Field of Search: 706/15, 706/62
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/0381 Multimodal input, i.e. interface arrangements enabling the user to issue commands by simultaneous use of input devices of different nature, e.g. voice plus gesture on digitizer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/038 Control and interface arrangements therefor, e.g. drivers or device-embedded control circuitry
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04186 Touch location disambiguation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

A “Contact Discriminator” provides various techniques for differentiating between valid and invalid contacts received from any input methodology by one or more touch-sensitive surfaces of a touch-sensitive computing device. Examples of contacts include single, sequential, concurrent, or simultaneous user finger touches (including gesture type touches), pen or stylus touches or inputs, hover-type inputs, or any combination thereof. The Contact Discriminator then acts on valid contacts (i.e., contacts intended as inputs) while rejecting or ignoring invalid contacts or inputs. Advantageously, the Contact Discriminator is further capable of disabling or ignoring regions of input surfaces, such tablet touch screens, that are expected to receive unintentional contacts, or intentional contacts not intended as inputs, for device or application control purposes. Examples of contacts not intended as inputs include, but are not limited to, a user'"'"'s palm resting on a touch screen while the user writes on that screen with a stylus or pen.

Claims

1. A touch-sensitive computing device, comprising:

one or more touch-sensitive input surfaces;

a touch input mechanism that identifies a plurality of contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of a user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces;

in response to the identification of the plurality of contact areas, the touch input mechanism further identifying one or more predicted areas of contact on the touch-sensitive input surfaces, prior to actual user contact with those predicted areas, that are expected to receive unintentional contacts concurrently with the contact between one or more portions of at least one of the user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces;

a touch evaluation mechanism that determines whether each of the plurality of contact areas corresponds to a valid user input attempt;

a sub-region disabling mechanism that disables contact processing for any of the plurality of contact areas that does not correspond to a valid input attempt and that also disables contact processing for the predicted areas of contact; and

a contact action mechanism for causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any contacts with areas of the touch-sensitive input surfaces for which contact processing has not been disabled.

2. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 1 further comprising a multi-touch mechanism for responding to two or more concurrent contacts that have been determined to be valid input attempts.

3. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 1 wherein one or more of the contacts are provided by any combination of one or more finger, pen and hover-based inputs to one or more of the input surfaces.

4. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 1 further comprising a pen input mechanism for receiving inputs to one or more of the input surfaces from a pen input device.

5. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 4 further comprising a hand discrimination mechanism for automatically determining whether any user finger-touch contact is from the user'"'"'s hand holding the pen or from the user'"'"'s other hand.

6. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 5 wherein an electrical signal is sent from the user'"'"'s hand holding the pen through the user'"'"'s body to the user'"'"'s other hand, and wherein a reading of that electrical signal as received through the user'"'"'s other hand represents a lossy version of the original electrical signal that is sufficient to allow the computing device to determine which of the user'"'"'s hands is holding the pen.

7. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 4 further comprising an orientation sensing mechanism that projects field lines from the pen onto one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces, while the pen is at some hover distance away from that touch sensitive input surface, and evaluates a shape of the projected field lines on that touch-sensitive input surface to determine a relative orientation between the pen and that touch-sensitive input surface.

8. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 4 further comprising a hover height sensing mechanism that projects field lines from the pen onto one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces and evaluates a size of the projected field lines on that touch-sensitive input surface to determine a distance between the pen and that touch-sensitive input surface.

9. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 1 further comprising a sub-region prediction mechanism that predicts one or more of the areas expected to receive unintentional contacts based on a relative orientation between a hand-held pen and one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces.

10. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 1 further comprising a personalization mechanism that uses a per-user usage profile for predicting one or more of the areas expected to receive unintentional contacts based on a relative orientation between a hand-held pen and one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces.

11. The touch-sensitive computing device of claim 1 further comprising an undo mechanism for undoing one or more actions initiated by the contact action mechanism in the event that the contact validation mechanism subsequently reclassifies any contact as an invalid input attempt.

12. A computing device having computer executable instructions stored therein for controlling contact responses of a touch-sensitive computing device, said instructions causing the computing device to execute a method comprising:

identifying a plurality of contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of a user'"'"'s hands and at least one of a plurality of touch-sensitive input surfaces;

determining whether each contact area corresponds to a valid user input attempt;

in response to each valid user input attempt, identifying one or more predicted areas of contact on one or more of the touch-sensitive input surfaces, prior to actual user contact with those predicted areas, that are expected to receive unintentional contacts sequentially following the plurality of contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of the user'"'"'s hands and at least one of the plurality of touch-sensitive input surfaces;

disabling contact processing for each contact area that does not correspond to a valid input attempt;

disabling contact processing for each predicted area of contact; and

causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any contacts with areas of the touch-sensitive input surfaces for which contact processing has not been disabled.

13. The computing device of claim 12 further comprising instructions for responding to two or more concurrent contacts that have been determined to be valid input attempts.

14. The computing device of claim 12 wherein one or more of the contacts are provided by any combination of one or more finger, pen and hover-based inputs to one or more of the input surfaces.

15. The computing device of claim 12 further comprising instructions for determining a relative orientation between a hand-held pen and one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces by evaluating a shape of field lines projected by the pen onto that touch-sensitive input surface from some hover distance away from that touch-sensitive input surface.

16. The computing device of claim 12 further comprising instructions for using a per-user usage profile for predicting one or more of the areas expected to receive unintentional contacts based on a relative orientation between a hand-held pen and one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces.

17. A method for rejecting regions of unintentional contact on a touch-sensitive surface of a computing device, comprising:

identifying one or more contact areas between one or more portions of at least one of a user'"'"'s hands and at least one touch-sensitive input surface;

in response to the identification of one or more contact areas, using a per-user usage profile to predict one or more areas of contact on the at least one touch-sensitive input surface, prior to actual user contact with those predicted areas, that are expected to receive unintentional contacts in combination with the contact between one or more portions of at least one of the user'"'"'s hands and at least one touch-sensitive input surface;

determining whether each contact area corresponds to a valid input attempt by the user;

disabling contact processing for each contact area of any touch-sensitive input surface that does not correspond to a valid input attempt;

disabling contact processing for each predicted area that is expected to receive unintended contacts; and

causing the computing device to initiate one or more actions corresponding to any contacts with areas of the at least one touch-sensitive input surface for which contact processing has not been disabled.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising responding to two or more simultaneous contacts that have been determined to be valid input attempts.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein one or more of the contacts are provided by any combination of one or more finger, pen and hover-based inputs to one or more of the input surfaces.

20. The method of claim 17 further comprising determining a hover height between a hand-held pen and one of the touch-sensitive input surfaces by evaluating a size of field lines projected by the pen onto that touch-sensitive input surface.