Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Plural display systems – Tiling or modular adjacent displays
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-19
2001-08-07
Hjerpe, Richard (Department: 2674)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Plural display systems
Tiling or modular adjacent displays
C345S903000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06271806
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a display system which can be constructed by connecting a plurality of display elements to each other and more particularly, to a display system which can display an entire image regardless of a number of display elements.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In recent years, a display unit such as a television, a monitor or a display of a computer has been progressing for upsizing and higher resolution. In addition, a main stay of display units has shifted from a CRT to a liquid crystal display unit or a plasma display unit, so that display units are becoming increasingly thinner.
Especially, with a progress in the multimedia technology, a display unit is increasingly becoming an important and indispensable item when accessing a cyber space, and a larger size of screen with higher resolution is strongly desired.
In addition, a display unit is used in various occasions and it is required that the display unit is portable, and for this reason there is desired a display unit that is compact in size when carried, and has a large-sized screen with high resolution when assembled, and a display unit of which screen can be assembled in an arbitrary size as required.
However, with the conventional type of display unit, although upsizing and high resolution thereof have been in progress, excluding a large-sized display unit provided as a facility in a building such as an electric bulletin board or a sky sign, entire screen of the display unit is generally manufactured as a single unit at the time of manufacturing, so that there are problems as described below.
First, a user can not freely change or select size of the screen of a display unit.
Second, when a user wants to set a display unit with a large-sized screen, a display unit with a screen which is larger than the size of an entrance to a room can not be carried into the room, so that the display unit is practically restricted by size of the entrance thereof.
Third, the display unit with a large-sized screen is inconvenient to carry.
In addition, an image transmitting system in the conventional type of display unit works based on a scanning line system for continuously transmitting image data at prespecified resolution and a number of scanning lines, and can not basically support cases where the resolution (a number of display elements in the horizontal direction) and a number of scanning lines (a number of display elements in the vertical direction) are changed in association with a change in the size of the screen, and for this reason, the manufacturers could hardly think of any idea for making it possible for a user to freely change size of a screen.
For example, even if the resolution (a number of display elements in the horizontal direction) and the number of scanning lines (a number of display elements in the vertical direction) are increased by making the size of the screen larger, the resolution and the number of scanning lines each constituting the image data transmitted in the scanning line system remain unchanged, so that it is impossible to display an image using the entire screen. If an image is to be displayed, a portion of the screen is used for displaying the image thereon according to resolution and a number of scanning lines of transmitted image data. In other words, it is impossible to increase resolution of an image displayed on the screen even if the size of the screen is made larger.
If the resolution (a number of display elements in the horizontal direction) and the number of scanning lines (a number of display elements in the vertical direction) are decreased by making the size of the screen smaller, the resolution and the number of scanning lines each constituting the image data transmitted in the scanning line system is still the same as the original ones, so that all the transmitted image data can not be displayed on the screen. In other words, any display unit with a smaller screen results in displaying thereon only a portion of the image (an image trimmed according to the size of a screen) displayed on a display unit with a larger screen.
As a technology for solving the problems as described above, there is the patent application applied for by the present applicant (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. HEI 9-144296). Description is made hereinafter for an outline of this invention, however, detailed description thereof will be made in embodiments. With this invention, it is possible to construct a display system
100
with an arbitrary size of screen, as shown in
FIG. 20
, by connecting a plurality of pieces of unitized display unit (display unit
101
) to each other. With this type of configuration, size of a screen can arbitrarily be set, which allows a screen even with a larger size than that of an entrance of an office or a house to be realized inside the room thereof. In addition, the display system can be handled unit by unit, so that it is convenient to carry.
FIG. 21
is an explanatory view showing how the display system
100
shown in
FIG. 20
is used. This display system
100
may be used, for example, by installing on the entire wall of the room (K in the figure), or by attaching onto a portion (Q in the figure) of the wall surface or the roof (not shown in figure) of the room. This display system
100
can be purchased by purchasing the display units, so that the most suited size can be set in consideration of size of a wall and a space inside a room. In addition, the size of a screen can freely be increased or reduced, and a plurality of images (a to d in the figure) can concurrently be displayed on the system.
Sound can be adjusted automatically according to how an image is to be displayed. For example, if an image appears on the right side of the wall surface, sound is outputted mainly from a speaker Sr on the right side. Volume of the sound is also adjusted according to the size of an image. For example, if the image is small, the sound becomes smaller in proportion to the size. If the image is large, the sound becomes larger in proportion to the size.
This invention is also characterized in that, the resolution becomes higher in association with magnification of an image. That is because, as shown in a section E of
FIG. 22
, each of display units
101
has a plurality of display elements
102
arranged in an array. Accordingly, as shown in the figure, if an image A is magnified four times to obtain an image B, and when the same image contents is to be displayed, the image B having a larger number of display elements has higher resolution. In contrast, in the image display unit based on the conventional type of scanning line system, even if the image is magnified, a number of scanning lines are not changed, so that there is no change in the resolution.
Next, description is made for configuration of a display unit. As shown in
FIG. 23
, each display unit
101
has, for example, sixteen (4×4) display elements
102
. Each of the display units has a controller
103
respectively, and a storage device (not shown in the figure) is connected to the controller
103
. Data communications between display units are performed with infrared rays. For this reason, only the operation of arranging the display units
101
is required, so that the need for physical connection therebetween is eliminated (Only connection for power supply is required). Namely, by sending image data to one of display units
101
, the image data is transmitted to other display units
101
. Therefore, there is no need of wiring for each display element like in the conventional type of display unit.
However, with the configuration as described above as it is, all of the image data flows straight to each of the display units
101
, so that each of the display units
101
can not determine whether it should remain ON or OFF from the image data sent thereto. Therefore, in this display system
100
, the controller
103
of each display unit
101
selects data corresponding to the display element itself among the image data flown up to the displays, and each display unit is turned
Kimura Tadahiro
Kusano Masayuki
Motoshima Takahiko
Nishida Shinsuke
Daichu Denshi Co., Ltd.
Hjerpe Richard
Nguyen Kimnhung
Sughrue Mion Zinn Macpeak & Seas, PLLC
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