Patent Application
20100117956
This application claims the benefits of the Taiwan Patent Application Serial NO. 097143475, filed on Nov. 11, 2008, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display system and method for controlling an on-screen display within a display screen, more particularly to a display system which controls an on-screen display within a display screen and which uses lesser memory device for accomplishing the task.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A display screen is the best Human Media Interaction. When the display screen is in use, it is often required to adjust its brightness, viewing options, channels, color contrast, screen dimension and horizontal or vertical position of the screen display in order to provide the outmost viewing ability. Generally speaking, the aforesaid features of the display screen are default during the mass production. After sale of the display screen (or the display device), in case the end user wishes to adjust these features, then the on-screen display within the display screen is applied.
The on-screen display will appear in the display screen upon switch-on operation and an input device (such as a remote control) is applied to adjust the parameters of the on-screen display so as to set the background and features of the screen display in the display screen.
A conventional display system with OSD ability requires a relatively large hardware, such as ROM (Read Only Memory) and RAM (Random Access Memory). The on-screen display usually consists of a text information and an Icon. The text information includes a display column consisting of a plurality of literal strings or bar charts. Each literal string is formed by combining several numbers of letters. In each literal string, some letters may be repeatedly used in addition to its color, font and etc. . . . According to the prior art, all of the literal strings are fully stored within the memory device (usually in ROM) and they will be downloaded within the RAM upon initialization of the display system.
It takes tremendously large memory device so that the cost of the hardware structure is high and the response speed is slow and is therefore not beneficial f or the market competition. For instance, an X-ray film for medical display should have high resolution in order to assist in finding out the disease. If the text information in the screen display is needed to be enlarged, it requires tremendously large memory source according to the prior art technology.
In addition, in case the display is required to be rotated, the text information (or the X-ray film) in the display screen also rotates simultaneously with the display screen. Generally, the display screen is rotated 90° from its initial position. In order to complement with and provide accurate two dimensional rotation of the display screen, the apparatus requires twice of its initial storage space, thereby wasting a great deal of memory device and causing a burden for the processor. Thus, the hardware device of the X-ray apparatus needs to be increased to comply with the added memory, which is against the economic trend for the manufacturers.
Therefore, the main object of the present invention is to provide a display system and the method thereof, where, a relatively large memory device can be economized and which includes icon and control settings that can be independently and simultaneously controlled so as to overcome the drawbacks encountered during use of the prior art display system.
The object of the present invention is to provide a display system and the method thereof, where, a relatively large memory device can be economized and which includes icon and control settings that can be independently and simultaneously controlled so as to economize the expense of the hardware and lowers the processing load of the processor, thereby quickening the operation speed of the processor. In practical, the load of ROM and RAM is reduced apparently.
A display system of the present invention is used for controlling an on-screen display within a display screen of a display device. The on-screen display is a screen data in the form of a text information including a display column consisting of a literal string formed by combining several numbers of letters.
The display system accordingly includes a memory device, a controller and a text buffer.
Upon initialization of the display device, the controller downloads and temporarily stores a coding chart that includes a group of string-forming codes and a group of letter-forming codes. The coding chart further includes different groups of string-forming codes for encoding different types of the literal strings. The string-forming codes and the letter-forming codes are corresponding to the several pieces of letter information in the memory device.
Upon receipt of an external command corresponding to a specific string-forming code, the controller fetches a respective letter-forming code from the coding chart based on the specific string-forming code and a respective piece of letter information from the memory based on the respective letter-forming code, thereby encoding the literal string and displaying the literal string over the display screen.
The text buffer is used for temporarily storing the literal strings. The letter parameters for setting feature of a letter are also stored in the text buffer. An output buffer is used for temporarily storing the icon from the memory device and the text information from the text buffer, and thus an assembly of the icon and the text information is displayed over the display screen 31.
In the display system and method of the present invention, the memory device is stored with several pieces of letter information. The coding chart can be downloaded with the assistance of the controller for encoding the literal string by fetching the string-forming codes and the letter-forming codes from the coding chart, thereby economizing the expense of the hardware and lowers the processing load of the processor, which, in turn, quickens the operation speed of the processor. In practical, the load of ROM and RAM is reduced apparently.
Other features and advantages of this invention will become more apparent in the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment of this invention, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
The icons 4202 can be optionally selected and upon clicking a respective icon 4202 and a corresponding text information 4204 will appear below it. In
In case the text information 4204 includes the literal strings 4204a, where each literal string 4204a is formed by combing several numbers of letters 24. As best shown in
The text information 4204 may include the bar chart 4204b in addition to the literal string 4204a, as shown in
The trade logo 4206 in fact is a are drawing, and therefore has no function ability. The screen data 42 of the screen display further has a few function keys 12 to permit the user to operate.
The text information 4202 will be described first while the icons 4202 and the control setting 80 will be deal with later. The display system 30 of the present invention further includes a memory device 32, a controller 34 and a text buffer 36.
The memory device 32 is used for storing several pieces of letter information 32A. The memory device 32 uses black and white levels for recording the several pieces of letter information 32A. The memory device 32 further includes a ROM (read-only memory) 3202 for permanently storing the several pieces of letter information 32A and a RAM (random access memory) 3204 for temporarily storing the several pieces of letter information 32A downloaded from the ROM 3202 during initialization of the display system 30.
The controller 34 includes a register 3402 for downloading and temporarily storing a coding chart 50 upon initialization of the display system 30. The coding chart 50 includes a group of string-forming codes 52 and a group of letter-forming codes 54. The coding chart 50 further includes different groups of string-forming codes 52 for encoding different types of the literal strings 4204a. The string-forming codes 52 and the letter-forming codes 54 are correspond to the several pieces of letter information 32A.
Upon receipt of an external command corresponding to a specific string-forming code 52, the external command is transferred to the processor 38 via a flexible cable or an interface. Note that, the display device may include a software device for conducting the fetching and transferring of the control setting to the controller 34 via the flexible cable or the interface.
At this time, the controller 34 fetches a respective letter-forming code 54 from the coding chart 50 based on the specific string-forming code 52 and a respective piece of letter information 32A from the memory device 32 based on the respective letter-forming code 54, thereby encoding the literal string 4204a and displaying the literal string 4202a over the display screen. The literal string 4204a may consist of several identical letters 24 (i.e. a single letter is repeatedly used). Since the memory device 32 is stored with only one piece for each of the several pieces of letter information, a relatively large amount of storage space is reduced in the memory device 32.
In real application, the memory circuit in the built-in chipset serves as the text buffer 36 for quickly and temporarily storing the literal strings 4204a for future use and the literal strings 4204a are displayed over the display screen 31.
The display screen 31 further includes a ROM (read-only memory) 37 and a MCU (microprocessor) 38. In this embodiment, EPROM 3202 (Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) or EEPROM 3202 (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) is used for the ROM (read-only memory) 37, in which, the control setting 80 and the coding chart 50 are stored in advance.
During the initialization of the display screen 31, the processor 38 will download the control setting 80 and the coding chart 50 from the ROM 37 and transfer the same to the controller 34.
The control setting 80 is used for setting display modes of the screen data 42 (the on-screen display). The control setting 80 further includes background parameters 80b for setting a background feature of the screen display in the display screen 31 and letter parameters 80a for setting feature of a letter. The background parameters 80b include the image position relative to its background, distance or dimension of the background relative to the image, brightness or color of the background settings of the OSD (on-screen display). The letter parameters 80a include colors of the letters, fonts, style and size of the letters.
Regarding to the colors, the memory device 32 uses black and white levels for recording the several pieces of letter information 32A. The letter parameters for setting feature of the letter include color information. The controller 34 downloads the color information from letter parameters 80a of control setting 80 for substituting the black and white levels in order to control the display modes of the screen data 42. Since the black and white levels respectively need single 1-bit memory for recording while each of the RBG (Red, Blue and Green) respectively need 24 bits, a relatively large memory space can be economized, which, in turn, lowers the load of the memory device 32.
The screen data 42 further includes, in addition to the text information 4204, at least one icon 4202 stored in the memory device 32. To be more specific, the icon 4202 is stored in the ROM 3202 like the several pieces of letter information 32A. The coding chart 50 further has a group of icon-forming codes 56, one of which corresponds to the icon 4202. Upon initialization of the display system 30, the icon 4202 is downloaded and stored within the RAM (random access memory) 3204.
Upon receipt of the external command, the controller 34 searches and fetches a respective icon-forming code 56 from the coding chart 50 based on the icon 4202. An output buffer 92 is used for temporarily storing the icon 4202 which is combined with the text information 4204 later, thereby displaying the screen data 42 over the display screen 31,
The several pieces of letter information 32A stored within the memory device 32 in reality include letters or characters of multiple languages. However, for the sake of practical application, only those letters to be used in the screen data 42 are stored within the memory device 32 so as to reduce the burden and thus quicken the operation speed of the processor.
The display system 30 of the present invention further includes a template generator 90 and an output buffer 92 in addition to the text buffer 36.
The template generator 90 is used for generating a template for serving as the background feature of the screen display based on the background parameters 80b.
The output buffer 92 is used for temporarily storing the icon 4202 from the memory device 32, the text information 4204 from the text buffer 36, the template from the template generator 90 and thus an assembly of the icon 4202, the text information 4204 and the template is displayed over the display screen 31.
Note that in the present invention, the control setting 80 and the coding chart 50 can be simultaneously downloaded during the initialization of the display system 30 or the former two are downloaded separately after the initialization of the display system 30.
For instance, in case the control setting 80 are downloaded separately after the initialization of the display system 30, the user can click a respective function in the menu or he can click a respective icon 4202 in order to display a corresponding text information 4204. Regarding the coding chart 50, the same can be either fully or partially downloaded and is temporarily stored in the register 3402 after the initialization of the display system 30 so as to economize the hardware and thus increase the function ability of the display system 30.
Sometimes, the display screen 31 applied in the medical field is required to change from its initial position to a predetermined position. Under such condition, the control setting 80 further includes position-setting parameters 82 and orientation-setting parameters 83 cooperating with the position-setting parameters 82 for determining display modes so as to define a position and orientation of the screen data 42 in the display screen 31 when the latter is rotated to the predetermined position.
In real application, the position-setting parameters 82 and orientation-setting parameters 83 of the screen display in the display screen 31 can be selected by menu of OSD externally. Under this condition, the display system 30 of the present invention further includes a press button 90 and a touch button 92. The press button 90 corresponds to the orientation-setting parameters 83 and depression of which results in rotation of the screen data 42 relative to the display screen 31, thereby changing the orientation of the screen data 42.
In addition, rotation of the display screen 31 from its initial position to the predetermined position will be activated by the touch button 92, such as by means of magnetic reed or switches, thereby retaining the screen data 42 at the upper left corner of the display screen 31, as shown in
According to the step S02, upon initialization of the display device, a coding chart 50 is downloaded and temporarily stored, wherein the coding chart 50 includes a group of string-forming codes 52 and a group of letter-forming codes 54 corresponding to the several pieces of letter information 32A. The coding chart 50 further includes a group of icon-forming codes 56.
The coding chart 50 has different groups of string-forming codes 52 for encoding different types of the literal strings 4204a.
At the same time, the control setting 80 is downloaded together with the coding chart 50 during the initialization of the display device. The control setting 80 is used for setting display modes of the screen data 42, wherein the control setting 80 includes parameters for setting the feature of the screen display in the display screen 31. In addition, the several pieces of letter information 32A in fact are black and white levels. The control setting 80 may include color information, which is downloaded for substituting the black and white levels in order to control the display modes of the screen data 42.
According to the step S04, an external command corresponding to a specific string-forming code 52 is received.
A respective letter-forming code 54 is fetched from the coding chart 50 based on the specific string-forming code 52, according to the step S06.
According to step S08, a respective piece of letter information 32A is fetched from the memory device 32 based on the respective letter-forming code 54 for encoding the literal string 4204a.
The literal string 4204a is stored temporarily, according to the step S10,
According to the step S12, the literal string 4204a is displayed over the display screen 31.
In addition, upon receipt of the external command, a respective icon-forming code 56 is searched and fetched from the coding chart 50 based on the icon 4202, thereby encoding the literal string 4204a and displaying the literal string 4204a over the display screen 31. The text information 4204 is corresponding to the icon 4202.
Note that the display screen 31 applied in the medical field is required to change from its initial position to a predetermined position for a medical practitioner to diagnose the disease (for example, viewing an X-ray film). The orientation of the text information is required to be rotated from its initial position. Under such condition, the control setting 80 includes position-setting parameters 82 and orientation-setting parameters 83 cooperating with the position-setting parameters 82 for determining display modes so as to define a position and orientation of the screen data 42 in the display screen 31 when the latter is rotated to the predetermined position.
As explained above, in the display method of the present invention, the several pieces of letter information 32A are stored in the memory device 32. The controller 34 fetches the string-forming codes 52 and the letter-forming codes 54 from the coding chart 50 in order to encode the literal string 4204a. Therefore, a relatively large memory device can be economized and consequently lowers the processing load of the processor, thereby quickening the operation speed of the processor. In real application, the storage space or load of the ROM 3202 and the RAM 3204 is directly reduced.
While the invention has been described in connection with what is considered the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is understood that this invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments but is intended to cover various arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent arrangements.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 097143475 | Nov 2008 | TW | national |
