Patent Application
20070153137
This non-provisional application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(a) on Patent Application No(s). 094146854 filed in Taiwan, R.O.C. on Dec. 27, 2005, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a display device, and more particularly, to a display device for automatically switching the image and maintaining the sound balance when the display device is rotated.
2. Related Art
With the development of displaying technology, liquid crystal display (LCD) has become a mainstream technique for the screen of the desktop computer and liquid crystal TV, and also occupies an important position at the displaying for the notebook computer and cell phone. The developing of LCD not only focuses on enhancing the response speed and viewing angle and enlarging the size of the display panel, but also involves in TV application and has a multi-channel sound system, which has become a video/audio multimedia appliance with computer mode and television mode. Furthermore, as for the developing of other functions, e.g., freely rotating the screen allows the displaying image to rotate automatically along with the rotation of the display, such that the user dose not have to frequently scroll the webpage when browsing the webpage, designing diagrams or tables, thus providing convenience and enhancing the efficiency of using the space of the screen.
As for the conventional art of automatically rotating the displaying image, e.g., ROC Patent Gazette Publication No. 00440786 entitled “Automatically rotated display device” filed on 16 Jun., 2001, wherein a sensor is used to sense the horizontal displacement and vertical displacement of the display, a horizontal sensing signal and a perpendicular sensing signal are generated respectively by the two displacements, a direction-displaying data is generated by a microprocessor through a predetermined program according to the two sensing signals, and a direction-controlling data is generated by a display controller, so as to control the displaying direction of the image. However, as for the method of controlling the displaying direction of the image by sensing the relative displacement of the display, the problem that the sensing speed restricts the displaying speed occurs, and also, the mechanical jittering causes errors in sensing the displacement.
In view of the above problem, the present invention discloses a display device with automatically rotated images and a method thereof, wherein after the display is rotated, the image is automatically rotated without sensing the displacement of the display.
The display device with automatically rotated images provided in the present invention comprises a magnetic sensor, a microprocessor control unit (MCU) and a displaying control unit.
The technical method of using the display device of the present invention comprises the following steps. The magnetic sensor is used to sense the change in magnetic flux when the display device is rotated, and send out a sensing signal to the MCU according to the change in the magnetic flux, so as to tell it about the rotating angle. Next, the MCU generates a displaying direction signal through a predetermined program according to the sensing signal and then transfers the displaying direction signal to the displaying control unit. The displaying control unit generates a displaying control message for controlling the rotating of the displaying image. Furthermore, when the display device is rotated, the image is divided by a software technique, thus different divided images can be used to display different images. On the other aspect, the display device further comprises four loudspeakers spaced by a fixed distance, and as the image rotates, the loudspeakers are switched to maintain the left and right sound channels to be unchanged.
In summary, the device and method disclosed in the present invention adjust the image and sound by sensing the change in the magnetic flux for the display device, and the efficiency of using the screen space is achieved through software technique.
Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.
The present invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given herein below for illustration only, and which thus is not limitative of the present invention, and wherein:
Referring to
The magnetic sensor 110 is a sensor based upon the Hall effect principle. Referring to
VH=RHIB/d (1).
In Equation (1), VH represents the Hall voltage; RH represents the Hall constant; I represents the current passing through the Hall element 213; B represents the sensed magnetic flux; and d represents the thickness of the Hall element 213.
When the display device 10 is rotated, the positive magnetic pole 211 and the negative magnetic pole 212 are driven to rotate, and the Hall element 213 maintains at the original position, so as to sense the change in the magnetic flux B, and generate a Hall voltage VH.
The magnetic sensor 110 provides the Hall voltage VH according to the sensing signal 911, and outputs the sensing signal 911 to the MCU 120. The MCU 120 quantifies the Hall voltage VH represented by the sensing signal 911 into a first magnetic flux T′, i.e., corresponding magnetic flux variation. With respect to the first magnetic flux T′, a second magnetic flux T is stored within the memory unit, which is a standard quantity for the MCU 120 to determine whether to rotate the image or not, or a magnetic flux threshold quantity. The MCU 120 determines whether to rotate the image or not through a predetermined program 30 (referring to
Referring to
Thus, when the first magnetic flux T′ is larger than or equal to the second magnetic flux T, the control unit 140 generates the displaying control signal 913 according to the direction signal 912 output by the MCU 120, so as to make the display unit 150 rotate the image. However, when the first magnetic flux T′ is smaller than the second magnetic flux T, the image is not rotated.
In this embodiment, the proportional allocation of the length and width for the image and the allocation of the displaying district are achieved by software technique after the image has been rotated. That is, when the display device 10 is rotated, the image is not only rotated, but can also be shown with a length and width ratio of 9:16, or maintaining the length and width ratio of 16:9. As for the former circumstance, the area occupied by the image is possibly the whole screen or reduced to a part of the area in the screen, and as for the later circumstance, in order to allow the image to maintain the length and width ratio of 16:9, the area occupied by the image must be reduced to a part of the area in the screen. Combining the above two circumstances, if the image after being rotated is reduced to a part of the area in the screen, the remaining part can be further used for other applications. For example, if the original image is an image in the television input/output mode, and the image after being rotated is reduced to maintaining the length and width ratio of 16:9 and located at the central part or the upper or lower part of the screen, the remaining area can be used for displaying image at a computer or other video input/output mode, that is, a dual mode is performed. Or otherwise, the remaining area can be used to display an electronic program guide (EPG), which is a man machine interface (MMI) for a wireless digital television. After the length and width ratio of the image after being rotated and the allocation and application of the displaying area are determined through the software technique, the software technique may be embedded into the MCU 120, such that the MCU 120 generates the direction signal 912 in accordance with the allocation made through the software technique, and outputs the direction signal 912 to the control unit 140.
Referring to
When the display device 40 is rotated, the magnetic sensor 410 senses the rotation of the display device 40 and generates a Hall voltage VH, and the sensing signal 941 for representing the Hall voltage VH is output to the MCU 420. The MCU 420 quantizes the Hall voltage VH represented by the sensing signal 941 into a first magnetic flux T′, which is a corresponding magnetic flux variation. With respect to the first magnetic flux T′, a second magnetic flux T is stored within the memory unit, which is a standard quantity for the MCU 420 to determine whether to rotate the image or not, or a magnetic flux threshold quantity. The MCU 420 determines whether to rotate the image or not through a predetermined program 30 according to the first magnetic flux T′ and the second magnetic flux T. If it is determined to rotate the image, the MCU 420 generates a direction signal 942 containing an image direction message and a sound channel direction message, and outputs the direction signal 942 to the control unit 440. The control unit 440 generates an image control signal 943 and a sound channel control signal 944 according to the direction signal 942, and outputs them to the display unit 450 and the loudspeaker unit 460 respectively. The display unit 450 rotates the image according to the image control signal 943, and after the image is rotated, the proportional allocation of the length and width and the allocation of the displaying area are achieved by the MCU 420 together with a software technique. The loudspeaker unit 460 adjusts the output of sound according to the sound channel control signal 944. The proportional allocation of the length and width and the allocation of the displaying area achieved through the predetermined program 30 together with the software technique has already been illustrated in the former embodiment, thus will not be described herein any more.
Referring to both
As shown in
The invention being thus described, it will be obvious that the same may be varied in many ways. Such variations are not to be regarded as a departure from the spirit and scope of the invention, and all such modifications as would be obvious to one skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 094146854 | Dec 2005 | TW | national |
