Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display peripheral interface input device – Cursor mark position control device
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-30
2001-09-11
Chang, Kent (Department: 2673)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display peripheral interface input device
Cursor mark position control device
C345S182000, C345S157000, C463S030000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06288705
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to interface devices for allowing humans to interface with computer systems, and more particularly to computer interface devices that allow the user to provide input to computer systems and provide force feedback to the user.
Computer systems are used extensively to implement many applications, such as word processing, data management, simulations, games, and other tasks. A computer system typically displays a visual environment to a user on a display screen or other visual output device. Users can interact with the displayed environment to perform functions on the computer, play a game, experience a simulated environment, use a computer aided design (CAD) system, etc. One visual environment that is particularly common is a graphical user interface (GUI). GUI's present visual images which describe various graphical metaphors of a program or operating system implemented on the computer. Common GUI's include the Windows™ operating system from Microsoft Corporation and the MacOS operating system from Apple Computer, Inc. The user typically moves a displayed, user-controlled graphical object, such as a cursor or pointer, across a computer screen and onto other displayed graphical objects or predefined screen regions, and then inputs a command to execute a given selection or operation. The objects or regions (“targets”) can include, for example, icons, windows, pull-down menus, buttons, and scroll bars. Most GUI's are currently 2-dimensional as displayed on a computer screen; however, three dimensional (3-D) GUI's that present simulated 3-D environments on a 2-D screen can also be provided. Other programs or environments that may provide user-controlled graphical objects such as a cursor or a “view” controlled by the user include graphical “web pages” or other environments offered on the World Wide Web of the Internet, CAD programs, video games, virtual reality simulations, etc.
The user interaction with and manipulation of the computer environment is achieved using any of a variety of types of human-computer interface devices that are connected to the computer system controlling the displayed environment. In most systems, the computer updates the environment in response to the user's manipulation of a user-manipulatable physical object (“user object”) that is included in the interface device, such as a mouse, joystick, etc. The computer provides feedback to the user utilizing the display screen and, typically, audio speakers.
A computer mouse is a common user object used to interact with a GUI or other graphical environment. A mouse (and other mouse-type devices such as a track ball) is typically used as a position control device in which displacement of the mouse in a planar workspace (e.g. on a mouse pad) is directly correlated to displacement of the user-controlled graphical object, such as a cursor, displayed on the screen. This displacement correlation may not be a one-to-one correspondence, since the cursor position may be scaled according to a constant mapping from the mouse position e.g., the mouse may be moved a distance of one inch on a mouse pad which causes the controlled cursor to move four inches across the screen. In most cases, small movements of the mouse are scaled to large motions of the cursor on the screen to allow the user to easily point to targets in all areas of the screen. The user can typically change the scaling or “pointer speed” of a cursor to a desired level, which is the ratio or scaling factor of cursor movement to mouse movement, using menus provided in the operating system or application program.
The scaled cursor movement in a GUI works well for coarse cursor motion, which is the broad, sweeping motion of the cursor that brings the cursor from one global area on the screen to another. Accuracy of cursor motion is not critical for coarse motion, but speed of the cursor is—ideally, the cursor traverses the desired distance on the screen quickly and efficiently. For such tasks, it is valuable for the cursor to move a large distance with small motions of the physical mouse hardware. However, a problem occurs in mouse-type devices when the user wishes to move the cursor a short distance or in small increments (“fine positioning”). For tasks in which accurate positioning of the cursor is needed, such as target acquisition tasks, the large scaling of mouse movement to cursor movement is inadequate or even harmful. For example, the user may wish to move the cursor onto a GUI target such as an icon or menu item. If very small motions of the mouse result in large cursor motion, the user may simply lack the manual dexterity to acquire the target. Certain target acquisition tasks where the targets are very small can be particularly challenging even if the mapping between the cursor and the mouse is reasonable for most other cursor motion activities. For example, in drawing programs it is often required that a user position the cursor on a very small “point” or “node” on the screen; and in some cases, the target can be as small as a single display pixel. For such situations, a scaling that causes large motions of the cursor for small motions of the mouse may make a target acquisition task physically impossible for the user.
Mouse “ballistics” or “ballistic tracking” is typically used to alleviate the scaling problem for fine positioning of the cursor. Ballistics refers to the technique of varying the scaling between motion of a physical mouse and motion of a displayed cursor depending upon the velocity of the mouse in its workspace. The assumption is that if the user is moving the mouse very quickly, the user is likely performing a “coarse motion” task on the screen, and therefore the mouse driver scales small motions of the mouse to large motions of the cursor. Conversely, if the user is moving the mouse very slowly, the user is likely performing a fine positioning task on the screen, and the mouse driver scales small motions of the mouse to small motions of the cursor. Such a variable scaling technique is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,734,685 of Watanabe and 5,195,179 of Tokunaga.
Many algorithms can be used for mouse ballistics. The simplest method is to designate a threshold velocity such that if the mouse is moving faster than the threshold velocity, a large scaling of cursor position is made so that small motions of the mouse cause large motions of the cursor; and if the mouse is moving slower than the threshold velocity, a smaller scaling is made so that small motions of the mouse cause small motions of the cursor. A more sophisticated and more common method is to gradually change the scaling in accordance with mouse velocity using a continuous function. This can be a simple linear function, such as a direction relation between mouse speed and the distance the cursor moves for a given increment of mouse motion, or a non-linear function that is optimized in a particular way. The “mapping” of the cursor to the mouse is the method of translating the mouse position in its workspace to a cursor position on the display screen and may involve ballistics or other algorithms and scale factors.
A problem occurs when standard ballistics techniques are used with force feedback interface devices. Force feedback interface devices allow a user to experience forces on the manipulated user object based on interactions and events within the displayed graphical environment. Typically, computer-controlled motors or other actuators are used to output forces on the user object in provided degrees of freedom to simulate various sensations, such as an obstruction force when moving the cursor into a wall, a damping force to resist motion of the cursor, and a spring force to bias the cursor to move back toward a starting position of the spring. Force feedback devices can be implemented in many forms, such as a joystick, mouse, steering wheel, etc.
When these and other types of forces are implemented in conjunction with mouse ballistics, a conflict occurs between the use of ballistics
Beamer Jonathan L.
Braun Adam C.
Chang Dean C.
Rosenberg Louis B.
Chang Kent
Immersion Corporation
Riegel James R.
Tucker Guy V.
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