Image analysis – Image sensing – Hand-held
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-23
2001-09-11
Couso, Jose L. (Department: 2624)
Image analysis
Image sensing
Hand-held
C704S275000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06289140
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to portable capture devices such as hand held document scanners or digital cameras. Even more particularly, the invention relates to voice control input for portable hand held document scanners or digital cameras.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Portable capture devices, such as hand held document scanners or digital cameras, have proven to be very useful tools in certain situations. Their portability and ease in capturing and saving information from various locations away from a user's office or work place are the primary benefits of such capture devices.
Though such portable capture devices are small, reducing their size to be even smaller and more portable is desirable. However, further reductions in size are fairly limited by the current physical user interface requirements. Most portable hand held document scanners, for example, have anywhere from ten to fifteen user input buttons to allow the user to control a number of different operations. Such operations include: start and stop scanning; save and delete scanned information; send scanned information; and view, zoom, and pan scanned data on the scanner display. The buttons must be large enough and adequately spaced to allow a user to easily control and press the buttons. The buttons must also be placed in such a fashion that the portable scanner device can be handled by the user without pressing buttons to activate various functions not intended to be activated in the normal transport and handling of the capture device, and while using the portable scanner device to scan a document. Buttons sometimes must be used in combination, making the scanner device somewhat awkward to use. Due to the physical space occupied by the user input buttons, the output display on such capture devices is often quite small by necessity, making use of the display less functional than desired. The same can be said for portable digital cameras.
It is thus apparent that there is a need in the art for an improved method or apparatus which will reduce the number of user input buttons required to operate the portable capture device and at the same time reduce the complexity of the user interface. There is also a need in the art to further reduce the size of portable capture devices to further increase their portability and ease of use. A further need in the art is to utilize a larger, more readable display in portable capture devices while maintaining a reduced overall size for the portable capture device. The present invention meets these and other needs in the art.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
It is an aspect of the present invention to utilize user voice input to control the operation of a portable capture device, such as a hand held document scanner or digital camera.
It is another aspect of the invention to reduce the number of user input buttons on a portable capture device.
Yet another aspect of the invention is to reduce the overall size of a portable capture device through the elimination of a number of user input buttons.
Still another aspect of the invention is to increase the output display area of a portable capture device while decreasing the overall size of the portable capture device by utilizing some of the physical space formerly occupied by a number of user input buttons that have been eliminated.
A further aspect of the invention is to key the operation of a portable capture device to an audible password spoken by a user.
A still further aspect of the invention is to tether a portable capture device to a host computer to train the portable capture device to recognize a user's voice control input commands.
Another further aspect of the invention in another embodiment is to utilize a limited voice control input command set in a portable capture device that does not require training by a host computer.
The above and other aspects of the invention are accomplished in a portable capture device that receives voice control input commands to control its operation. To initiate an action with a portable capture device, such as a scan with a portable hand held document scanner, the user powers on the capture device and then inputs the voice control input command “scan”, which is picked up by the capture device through a voice pickup component located in the capture device. Upon recognizing the command “scan”, the capture device will wait a predetermined amount of time, usually a few seconds, for the user to position the capture device on a document. After the time delay, the capture device is ready to scan, which is indicated to the user by an audible beep or audible repeat of the word “scan”. The user then moves the portable hand held document scanner across the surface of the document. Upon detecting lack of movement for a predetermined period of time, the portable hand held document scanner will once again beep or output another audible word such as “done” or “stop” to indicate to the user that the capture device believes it should no longer be in scan mode. If the capture device detects no further movement within a predetermined amount of time from the beep or audible word output, usually a few seconds, the portable hand held document scanner leaves the scan mode and begins processing the scan data for output to the user on the portable hand held document scanner display. In an alternative embodiment of the invention, the user pushes a button on the portable hand held document scanner to stop the scan mode. The portable hand held document scanner then processes the scan data for output to the user.
Once the image is output to the display, the user can issue a voice control input command to “save” or “delete” the scanned image. The user may also view different parts of the image by issuing voice control input commands such as “zoom in”, “zoom out”, “left”, “right”, “up”, or “down”. The user may also transfer a scanned image, or several images, to a host computer through an established connection by issuing voice control input commands such as “send” or “send all”. Once the capture device recognizes the command, it performs the desired operation. If the capture device processes a voice control input command and finds no match, an indication of no match, such as an audible word or a beep pattern, is output to the user. The capture device then waits to receive the next voice control input command.
Voice control input allows a means for the capture device to be “keyed” to a particular user through the use of a spoken password. Once the capture device is powered on, it will not function until the proper password is received and processed. This would prevent anyone except the user from using the capture device as long as the user's password is not overheard.
In one embodiment of the invention a portable capture device, such as a portable hand held document scanner, is trained to recognize the user's spoken voice control input commands through voice analysis software. The voice analysis software may be located within the capture device, or located in a host computer system and accessed by the capture device while tethered to the host computer system. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the tethered mode is used to take advantage of the greater computing power available in the host computer system and to reduce the complexity of the capture device.
For example, in using the voice analysis software in the training mode, the user would be given a predetermined list of the functions that can be executed by the capture device with a voice control input command. Command one, for example, may represent a set of instructions for performing a scan function of a document or image. In selecting command one for training and analysis, the user would be prompted by the voice analysis software to choose a word that the user wants to use to invoke the set of instructions for the scan function. The user would then be prompted to repeat the chosen word a number of times. A logical choice would be to choose the word “scan”, but any word chosen by the user could be used. Each repetition of the word
Couso Jose L.
Do Anh Hong
Hewlett--Packard Company
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