This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2013-102616, filed on May 14, 2013; the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Embodiments described herein relate generally to a drawing apparatus and a drawing system.
In a mobile terminal such as a tablet, there is known a technology in which when an operation is performed by directly touching a screen with a finger or a touch pen, adequate vibration is given to develop a tactile sense of drawing in a pseudo manner. For example, there is known a technology in which when a user moves his or her finger along a screen surface, adequate vibration is added on a screen in a horizontal direction so that a user experiences a tactile feeling approximated to that of a concavo-convex shape. Also, there is promoted a method in which a tactile sense is utilized to provide a feedback to an action of operating a button on a screen or to present an end or a specific area on a screen.
In these technologies, vibration caused by friction between a paper sheet and a touch pen has been attempted to be realized in a contact part between a pen tip and a screen. However, with a pen tip vibrated during drawing, a drawn line can be jagged when attempting to draw a smooth line.
According to an embodiment, a drawing apparatus includes a casing including a tip; and a drive unit configured to vibrate the drawing apparatus. The drive unit is positioned within a range of 10 to 80 mm from the tip.
In general, letters or figures are drawn by bringing a pen in contact with a glass surface such as a tablet (hereinafter, simply referred to as drawing), but a pen is likely to slip on a glass surface, resulting in an uncomfortable writing feeling. As a countermeasure to this, for example, an elastomer (such as vulcanized rubber), felt, or the like is used as a material of a pen tip; or a resistance sense-enhancing film is applied on a glass surface such as a tablet.
Furthermore, there exists a technology enabling a user to experience a friction sense when moving a finger along a screen. Thus, a friction sense during an action of moving a finger along a screen is realized. Similarly, in a case of a pen tablet type interface, a technology is known in which surface elastic waves by ultrasonic waves are generated on a screen side to provide resistance in a pen moving direction. Accordingly, roughness is realized. In this case, when vibrating a screen by surface elastic waves in a moving direction of a touch pen and in an opposite direction to the moving direction of a touch pen, easiness and difficulty of movement with respect to a touch pen movement alternately appear. This is sensed as friction. Besides, there are known a method of realizing an adequate friction sense by changing screen vibration strength according to an area of a touch pen being in contact with a screen, as well as a method of calculating vibration behaviors caused by friction between a paper sheet and a touch pen by a simulation and transmitting a similar vibration to a touch pen by vibration of a screen. Moreover, there is disclosed a stylus in which a rotating vibrator or a linear vibrator is vibrated in response to vibration control information from external sources, and the vibration is modulated according to a moving speed of a pointer.
However, when a pen tip vibrates during drawing, a drawn line becomes jagged, and a smooth line is difficult to be drawn. Furthermore, there are two locations where a pen and a hand are in contact with each other while a pen is held. The two locations are a part on a pen held by a finger (a contact point 1) and a part for stabilizing a writing material (a contact point 2). According to ergonomic evaluation, there is knowledge that the center of gravity of a pen having a favorable writing feeling is advantageously located near the contact point 2. Such knowledge is described in Nobuki Matsuzaki, Shigeru Kinoshita, Ko Kayama, and Sachiko Tone, About Writing Feeling of Writing Material, Extended Abstracts of The 47th Meeting of The Japan Society of Applied Physics and Related Societies, 2000, p 460. That is, for improving a writing feeling during drawing, vibration of a pen tip is desirably transferred to the contact point 1 while inhibiting vibration from being transferred to the contact point 2 that is a location for stabilizing a writing material. However, a pen having such characteristics has not been developed. Here, vibration to be transferred to the contact point 1 may be only information on whether or not figures and letters are being drawn with a touch pen. For example, unnecessary processing such as modulation of vibration according to a writing speed has been substituted. Therefore, embodiments described herein provide a drawing apparatus capable of inhibiting drawing from becoming difficult to be performed due to vibration.
A drawing apparatus according to an embodiment described herein will be described below with reference to drawings.
The contact sensing unit 5 judges contact between a screen and a pen tip, and includes a pen core 5b in the touch pen 1 and a conductive rubber 5a mounted to an end of the pen core 5b. As the contact sensing unit 5, the following sensors can be used: a switch; and a distortion sensor that utilizes the fact that a casing and a core are deformed due to a force applied to the touch pen 1 at contact of a touch pen, for example. When the touch pen 1 touches a screen, the pen core 5b is pressed against a screen. Accordingly, the conductive rubber 5a located on an opposite side of the pen core 5b is compressed, resulting in a change of a resistance value. Thus, contact is sensed. A push switch may be used instead of the conductive rubber 5a. The power source 3 supplies power to the drive unit 2, the calculation unit 4, the contact sensing unit 5, or the like. The calculation unit 4 controls vibration of the drive unit 2 disposed to the touch pen 1. Furthermore, the calculation unit 4 performs judgment on a drawing mode of the touch pen 1; judgment based on information acquired by the movement sensing unit 11, the contact sensing unit 5, and the like; control of output of noise sound described later; and the like.
The movement sensing unit 11 detects a position of a touch pen by sensing a time change of a pen tip position on a screen of the drawn apparatus 10. A position of the touch pen 1 on a screen is transmitted to the host PC 20. Usually, a position of a pen tip is measured by the movement sensing unit 11 in a sampling cycle of approximately from tens to 100 Hz. Therefore, a movement of the touch pen 1 is detected by checking a change of pen tip position information transmitted to the host PC 20. In this case, an absolute position of the touch pen 1 in a screen is not necessary, and similarly to a mouse, only a relative movement is required to be acquired. Movement of the touch pen 1 can also be detected by a compact camera, a PSD (Position Sensing Device), an acceleration sensor, and a gyro sensor each mounted to a pen tip.
The drive unit 2 is hardware for vibrating the touch pen 1. As the drive unit 2, a motor and a piezoelectric element can be used. Usually, in the touch pen 1, a favorable writing taste is felt when there is appropriate resistance during drawing. For example, three types of pairs of a pen core and a paper sheet were prepared (Type-A: anti-glare sheet+felt core, B: glass+plastic core, C: soft film+felt core), and a questionnaire survey was conducted on about 30 subjects regarding mimetic words about a writing feeling and easiness of writing. The results are illustrated in
When the touch pen 1 is judged to be in a drawing mode (step S101: Yes), the calculation unit 4 checks output of the contact sensing unit 5 and the movement sensing unit 11 transmitted to the host PC 20, and judges whether or not a pen tip is in contact with a screen (step S102), and whether or not the touch pen 1 is moving near a screen (step S103).
When the calculation unit 4 judged that a pen tip is in contact with a screen (step S102: Yes), and the touch pen 1 is moving near a screen (step S103: Yes), the calculation unit 4 judges whether or not a vibration flag of the touch pen 1 is OFF (step S104). The vibration flag is a setting information for determining whether or not to vibrate the touch pen 1. When a vibration flag of the touch pen 1 is judged to be OFF (step S104: Yes), a vibration flag is changed to an ON state, and the processing returns to step S101 again while moving to step S105 (step S110). Thereafter, the calculation unit 4 generates a signal of a predetermined vibration pattern (step S105), and transmits the vibration pattern signal to the drive unit 2 for activation (step S106). On the other hand, when vibration is judged not to be in an OFF state (step S104: No), the processing returns to step S101.
When the touch pen 1 is judged not to be in a drawing mode (step S101: No), when a pen tip is judged not to be in contact with a screen (step S102: No), and when a pen tip is judged not to be moving (step S103: No), the calculation unit 4 judges whether or not a vibration flag of the touch pen 1 is in an ON state (step S107). When a vibration flag of the touch pen 1 is judged to be in an ON state (step S107: Yes), the calculation unit 4 changes a vibration flag to OFF, and the processing returns to step S101 while moving to step S108 (step S111). Thereafter, the calculation unit 4 generates a stop signal (step S108), and transmits a vibration OFF signal to the drive unit 2 for terminating action of the drive unit 2 (step S109). Thus, only when a pen tip is in contact with a screen and moving near the screen, a brush stroke is actually drawn on the screen, and vibration associated with drawing is transmitted to a fingertip. Therefore, a user can experience a skin sensation of a fingertip and a motion sense of a hand moving the touch pen 1, and can feel roughness of a screen in contact with the touch pen 1. When a vibration flag of the touch pen 1 is judged not to be in an ON state (step S107: No), the processing returns to step S101.
When a judgment on whether or not the touch pen 1 is in a drawing mode (step S101), a judgment on whether or not a pen tip is moving (step S103), and a judgment on whether or not a pen tip is in contact with a screen (step S102) are made on the host PC 20 side, the host PC 20 may generate a vibration pattern of the touch pen 1 in step S105 and step S108, and transmit the generated vibration pattern to the calculation unit 4 of the touch pen 1 via wireless or wired lines. Then, the touch pen 1 having received a vibration pattern performs processing of execution or termination of vibration action of the drive unit 2.
When at least one of a judgment on whether or not a pen tip is moving (step S103) and a judgment on whether or not a pen tip is in contact with a screen (step S102) is made on the touch pen 1 side, a judgment on whether or not the touch pen 1 is in a drawing mode (step S101) and a judgment on whether or not a vibration flag of the touch pen 1 is in an ON state or in an OFF state (step S104 and step S107) are made on the host PC 20 side. Then, judgment results are transmitted to the calculation unit 4 of the touch pen 1.
Then, the calculation unit 4 in the touch pen 1 generates an actual vibration pattern or an actual vibration termination pattern according to a vibration situation of ON or OFF at that time, that is information acquired from the host PC 20 (steps S105 and S108), to activate or stop the drive unit 2 (steps S106 and S109). Notably, when both a judgment on whether or not a pen tip is moving (step S103) and a judgment on whether or not a pen tip is in contact with a screen (step S102) are made on the touch pen 1 side, information to be transmitted from the host PC 20 to the calculation unit 4 in the touch pen 1 is only on whether or not the touch pen 1 is in a drawing mode. That is, only when a mode is to be changed, the mode may be transmitted. At this time, the calculation unit 4 in the touch pen 1 also determines action of the drive unit 2.
Next, a position where the drive unit 2 is disposed in the touch pen 1 will be described.
A position of arranging a vibrator will be described more specifically. As discussed above, a position of holding the touch pen 1 differs depending on a person. A hand of a normal adult male has a size of about 80 mm. Therefore, a position of disposing a vibrator is desirably within a range of 10 mm to 80 mm from an end (pen tip) of a casing of the touch pen 1. The position of not less than 80 mm from a pen tip is not desirable, since a drive unit can be directly brought into contact with a base of an index finger. The position of less than 10 mm from a pen tip causes a pen tip to be directly subjected to vibration. Therefore, a writing feeling can be impaired.
Next, a vibration signal of the drive unit 2 will be described in detail. In
Here, as a touch pen, there is an application of virtually changing a touch pen into one of various types of touch pens such as a pencil, a ball-point pen, and a magic pen. For example, when a user selects a pencil, a tactile sensation of a pencil can be obtained. Also, when a user selects a ball-point pen, a tactile sensation of a ball-point pen can be obtained. For example,
As illustrated in
Furthermore, the drawing apparatus 1 may include a sound output unit. The sound output unit is controlled by a sound control unit further provided to the calculation unit 4. For example, in addition to the above-described vibration, random noise sound may be output according to a position of the touch pen 1 in motion, so that a sense of reality can be further increased.
When a noise having large power on a low band side, such as pink noise, red noise, and brown noise, is used as random noise, a sense close to an actual sound of a touch pen is experienced. By changing the sound according to a touch pen type in a similar manner to vibration, more types of touch pens can be expressed. In order to change a pen type, for example, the touch pen 1 or a tablet screen may be provided with a pen selection button. Each time the button is pressed, a pencil mode, a ballpoint pen mode, a marker pen mode, a magic pen mode, and the like may be sequentially switched.
The method of controlling vibration described herein can also be realized through an attachment to an existing electronic touch pen. For example, as illustrated in
Calculation Unit 4
When provided to the drawn apparatus 10 or the host PC, the calculation unit 4 includes a control unit 1002 such as a CPU, a storage unit 1004 such as a ROM and a RAM, an external storage unit 1006 such as a HDD, an output unit 1008 outputting information for controlling the drive unit 2 or the sound output unit, and an acquisition unit 1010 acquiring information regarding a moving distance, trace, or the like of the touch pen 1. Also, the calculation unit 4 has a structure with a usual computer utilized. Furthermore, the calculation unit 4 may have an information processing apparatus performing, for example, acquisition of information regarding a moving distance, trace, or the like from the touch pen 1. Especially, when performed via wireless lines or the like, a wireless communication unit 1012 may be provided to the touch pen 1, the drawn apparatus 10, the host PC, and the like.
Processing to be executed in the calculation unit 4 according to the above-described embodiments may be stored as a program. A program to be stored is recorded in a file of an installable or executable format in a recording medium readable by a computer, such as a CD-ROM, a CD-R, a memory card, a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), and a flexible disk (FD). Thus, the recorded program is provided.
Furthermore, a program to be executed in the calculation unit according to the above-described embodiments may be provided by storing the program on a computer connected to a network such as the Internet and allowing a user to download the program via a network. Also, a program to be executed in the wireless communication unit according to the above-described embodiments and variations may be provided or distributed via a network such as the Internet. Also, a program to be executed in the wireless communication unit according to the above-described embodiments and variations may be provided by previously incorporating the program into a ROM or the like.
A program to be executed in the calculation unit according to the above-described embodiments has a module structure for realizing the above-described units on a computer. As actual hardware, a CPU retrieves a program from a HDD onto a RAM, and executes the retrieved program to realize the above-described units on a computer.
Here, the above-described embodiments are not limited by themselves, and can be practiced by modifying the components in a range without departing from the gist in an implementation stage. Moreover, various inventions can be formed by appropriately combining a plurality of components disclosed in the above-described embodiments. For example, some components may be deleted from all of the components shown in the embodiments. Furthermore, components of different embodiments may be appropriately combined.
For example, the steps in the flow chart of the above-described embodiments may be changed in execution order, may be plurally executed in a simultaneous manner, or may be executed in a different order for each implementation, unless such changes or execution are contrary to the nature of the steps.
While certain embodiments have been described, these embodiments have been presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the inventions. Indeed, the novel embodiments described herein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the embodiments described herein may be made without departing from the spirit of the inventions. The accompanying claims and their equivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the scope and spirit of the inventions.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2013-102616 | May 2013 | JP | national |