Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display peripheral interface input device – Including keyboard
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-03
2004-04-27
Liang, Regina (Department: 2675)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display peripheral interface input device
Including keyboard
C345S173000, C345S179000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06727891
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to small digital informational devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDA) and cellular mobile telephones, and, in particular to means for inputting graphical and spatial information into such devices.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
personal digital assistants (PDAs) are pocket-size computers, provided with various software packages to carry out a variety of tasks, such as managing calendars and personal data bases, financial data management and analysis, communications and game playing. The user usually communicates with the device by means of a so-called touch screen, which is spread over the display screen, to form a combined interactive screen. Beside data and graphics to be read by the user, there are displayed on the screen also various graphic user interface (GUI) devices, such as menus, dialog boxes and lists, with which the user interacts by touching the screen at the appropriate points—with the tip of his finger, with a pen or preferably with a passive stylus. In a like manner, there may be displayed on the screen an image of a keyboard (i.e. a virtual keyboard); when any key image is touched by the user, a corresponding code is generated, similar to that generated by a conventional keyboard. With appropriate software, the stylus may also be used to draw lines and to write symbols, such as cursive alphanumeric characters, by moving its tip over the screen.
This method of graphic input into a PDA has two major drawbacks: (a) A touch screen is a relatively expensive component (compared to a normal display screen). (b) The screen is necessarily small, thus requiring the user to limit the range of movement of the stylus and to control the movement very finely—which may prove undesirable for at least part of the user community. For virtual keyboard operation, the small size may prove particularly inconvenient, especially for multi-finger operation. In PDA devices that include a hardware keyboard, which generally is limited to twelve numeric keys (and is then called Keypad), such as cellular telephones, the above drawbacks are valid as well, whereby a keypad is even more limited in convenience.
For game playing and similar programs that involve spatial control of virtual objects on the screen, the usual manner of user interaction is by means of various control symbols and images on the screen, which the user touches with the same stylus. Such means of control are far from satisfactory, because they provide, at best, control along only two orthogonal axes at a time and because such control is not always analogous to the controlled entity of the virtual object; for example, a left-to-right motion of the stylus may control some angular orientation of the object or the rate of angular rotation. This, in many cases, proves to be inconvenient to the user and may lead to faulty operation.
There are various input devices known in the art and commonly used with conventional computers, such as a mouse, a so-called joy-stick and similar electromechanical devices, and various position input devices, also known as graphic tablets. Any of these may conceivably be connected to a PDA and thus used to effect the desired graphical input function and/or the desired control function, instead of the touch screen. All of them have, however, a major drawback in common, namely that their physical size is appreciable, compared with the size of a PDA, thus adding bulk to it and detracting from the usefulness of its pocket size. Also, each such device has additional drawbacks of its own. For example: A mouse does not provide any better control functions than as described above and is not handy for drawing lines and symbols; a graphic tablet is relatively expensive and is particularly bulky; and a joystick or its like serves best only for rate- and angular control but not for position control or for graphic input. Thus, to achieve most desired functions, at least two different ones of such devices need be deployed—which adds bulk and expense.
While a graphic tablet could conceivably be used for an external virtual keyboard, (thus avoiding the size limitations imposed by the display screen), no such applications have been known in the art (since so far no need has arisen). An additional drawback of the mouse and the graphic tablet, in common, is that they still provide only two-dimensional input at a time. Joy-stick like devices can provide control in more than two dimensions at a time, but their mode of operation is not analogous to the controlled variables (e.g. position, orientation and motion) of the virtual object, they usually control rate of motion (rather than position) and their movement is limited to a small volume around a fixed point. Various three-dimensional position input devices are known in the art, but all are even more expensive and bulky than the graphic tablet.
PDAs are already in ever widening use. Another type of a pocket-sized electronic device in widely increasing use is the cellular mobile telephone (CMT) with facilities for data communication and for personal data storage and management. There is a gradual increase in the number and sophistication of functions provided in CMT devices. Similarly to PDAs, CMTs also utilize a small screen to display data to the user. At present the prevailing means for input from the user is a keypad with twelve keys and several additional function buttons. It is expected, however, that, as the functionality of the CMTs widens, there will be a growing need for more graphics oriented and flexible input devices, similar to those needed for PDAs. It is even foreseen that the functions of a PDA and a CMT will eventually merge into a single device.
There is thus a need for, and it would be highly desirable to have, an input means for a PDA that will be compact and inexpensive and will enable convenient inputting of graphical and symbolic information. There is a further need for a compact and inexpensive means for inputting into a PDA three-dimensional graphics, and for controlling multi-dimensional position and orientation of virtual objects, displayed by a PDA, in a natural analogous-motion manner.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is applicable to PDAs, to function-enhanced CMTs, to any evolving combination of the two and to similar devices, including any that may evolve in the future. In the discussion to follow, as well as in the claims of the invention, all such devices will be referred to as PDAs, it being understood that the term PDA should be construed as applying to all and any of them.
Basically the invention provides a device, communicative with a PDA, that includes a hand-held movable part, or module, which inputs to the PDA information about all, or some of the six spatial variables of the movable part, namely its orientation about any of three orthogonal axes and the position of some reference point therein along any of three orthogonal axes. The movable part has preferably the form of a stylus, the size of an average pen, the reference point being near its tip, and will henceforth be referred to as a stylus. The device also includes a stationary part, or module, which is the one that communicates with the PDA; it may be an integral part of the PDA, mechanically attachable to it or a mechanically separate module. The device also includes a processing module, or processor, which receives electrical signals related to the spatial variables of the stylus and converts them into the desired coordinate- and orientation values, to be input to the PDA. As discussed in the Background section, the term PDA is used throughout this disclosure and application to represent any small digital device that provides display of data and graphics on a screen, such as a personal digital assistant or a cellular telephone with advanced data handling capabilities. The spatial variables, that is—position and/or orientation values in terms of two or three dimensions, fed into the PDA, are used to control various variables in programs running there. Examples of variables, which are frequently thus co
Gidron David
Moriya Netzer
Primack Harel
Fitch Even Tabin & Flannery
Liang Regina
Netmor Ltd.
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