Patent Application
20120120114
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1. Field of the Invention
This disclosure relates to a Graphical User Interface (GUI) on a display in a multimedia apparatus and a graphic object browsing method and system thereof.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98.
In recent years, with the flourishing development of embedded systems (such as the Android system launched by Google), smartphones are booming on the market. Home appliance products are also successively introduced with embedded systems to become so-called intelligent home appliances or information appliances, adding to the ever-increasing range of everyday applications connecting the household to the digital network.
In view of the rather fast development of embedded system platforms in the mobile phone market, several home appliance manufacturers are considering that an existing embedded system platform may be directly implanted into home appliance products based on the development of the mobile phone market. However, due to differences between home appliances and mobile phones, such as screen sizes, functions or number of operators, key components such as human-computer interfaces need to be very different for intelligent home appliances compared to those of mobile phones. For example, a human-computer interface on a mobile phone is mainly used for individuals, and therefore mostly a small screen is adopted. However, the user demand for a television is the opposite to that of a mobile phone. Accordingly, the human-computer interface on an intelligent home appliance must consider different user requirements including use experience of multiple users, screen size, and convenience of remote operation.
Remote control apparatus are essential in this wave of intelligent home appliances. Most home appliance remote controls with conventional buttons still have room for improvement. Current remote controls designed for intelligent home appliances include a motion sensor based on an accelerometer. Some current approaches map a value generated by the motion sensor, such as accelerometer, gyroscope, directly to an X-Y coordinate system on a display, so the value is used as a cursor. Few multimedia GUIs are designed according to characteristics of the motion sensor, which is more intuitive.
Currently, during watching TV, a user has to continuously press a button to switch a channel or an option. With the continuous increase of the number of channels, browsing channel programs to find a desirable program becomes increasingly tedious. On the other hand, an interface that displays only one channel picture at a time is also inconvenient to the user. Several suppliers now manufacture remote controls with a built-in accelerometer, while other systems support the use of smartphones for remote control; however, none of the presently-available GUI designs offer truly user-friendly operation.
Accordingly, a GUI on a display in a multimedia apparatus and a graphic object browsing method and system thereof are needed in the industry, so as to provide a user interface for a user to more intuitively browse and select a graphic object.
An embodiment of this disclosure provides a graphic object browsing method for a display of a multimedia apparatus. The graphic object browsing method includes the steps of: providing a GUI on a display, in which the GUI includes a main displaying area for displaying a plurality of graphic objects; receiving a tilt signal, in which the tilt signal includes a tilt direction and a tilt degree; displaying the plurality of graphic objects sliding on the main displaying area according to the tilt direction of the tilt signal; and controlling the sliding speed of the plurality of graphic objects according to the tilt degree of the tilt signal.
Another embodiment of this disclosure provides a graphic object browsing system for a display of a multimedia apparatus. The system includes a display, a remote control apparatus, and a multimedia control unit. The display is configured to display graphic objects representing a plurality of multimedia files. The remote control apparatus is configured to generate a tilt signal according to an input signal, in which the tilt signal includes a tilt direction and a tilt degree. The multimedia control unit is configured to control the graphic objects representing the multimedia files displayed by the display according to the tilt signal. The display shows the graphic objects representing the plurality of multimedia files sliding in a direction corresponding to the tilt direction at a speed corresponding to the tilt degree.
Still another embodiment of this disclosure provides a GUI for graphic object browsing for a display of a multimedia apparatus. The GUI includes a main displaying area and a tilt movement displaying area. The main displaying area is configured to display a plurality of graphic objects. The tilt movement displaying area is configured to display a tilt signal, in which the tilt signal includes a tilt direction and a tilt degree. The plurality of graphic objects displayed in the main displaying area slide according to the tilt direction displayed in the tilt movement displaying area, and a sliding speed of the graphic objects corresponds to the tilt degree displayed in the tilt movement displaying area.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the disclosure and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
This disclosure proposes a GUI browsing and selection, and a graphic object browsing method and system thereof that is more intuitive than those in the prior art. In this disclosure, life experiences of an ordinary user, that is, a concept that an object slides off a flat surfaces that is tilted, are used as an operation reference for graphic object browsing. The user does not need to learn how to operate, but instead can observe graphic object arrangement displayed by a display, and when the tilt begins, a graphic object on a picture begins to slide. A larger tilt angle means a higher sliding speed, which conforms to the intuition and experience in daily life. Compared with a conventional displaying interface, the GUI and the graphic object browsing method and system thereof according to this disclosure are more intuitive, and are also more convenient for fast browsing and easy operation by a user.
According to an embodiment of this disclosure, a sensor may be built in the remote control apparatus 101 and configured to detect a tilt angle and direction of the remote control apparatus 101 and convert the tilt angle and direction into the tilt signal. According to an embodiment of this disclosure, but this disclosure is not limited thereto, the sensor may be an accelerometer. Persons skilled in the art know that an acceleration value detected by the accelerometer may be converted into a tilt angle through the principles of trigonometric functions, so the tilt angle is used as the tilt signal. According to another embodiment of this disclosure, the remote control apparatus 101 may be a keyboard, and the tilt signal may be converted from a signal input by a user through the keys of the keyboard or keypad. According to yet another embodiment of this disclosure, the remote control apparatus 101 may be an apparatus equipped with a touch screen, and the tilt signal may be converted from a signal generated by touching the touch screen by a user. According to still another embodiment of this disclosure, the remote control apparatus 101 may be a camera, and the tilt signal may be converted from a body movement of a user captured by the camera. According to still another embodiment of this disclosure, the remote control apparatus 101 may be a microphone, and the tilt signal may be converted from a sound instruction of a user received by the microphone.
According to an embodiment of this disclosure, the tilt movement displaying area 202 may display a seesaw, and a tilt direction and a tilt degree of the tilt signal may be displayed through a tilt direction and a tilt angle of the seesaw. According to another embodiment of this disclosure, the tilt movement displaying area 202 may display a level or an indicator, in which the level or the indicator may display a current tilt direction and current tilt degree.
The tilt direction of the tilt signal may be to the left or to the right, as shown in
According to an embodiment of this disclosure, in Step 405, if the tilt degree of the tilt signal is unchanged, the sliding speed of the plurality of multimedia graphic objects may be increased. In this way, it may be simulated that the sliding speed of the object increases due to gravity. In other words, the tilt degree may also depend on the duration of the received tilt signal, and a greater duration of received tilt signal corresponds to more acceleration according to the principle of momentum. According to still another embodiment of this disclosure, in Step 403, since the tilt direction of the tilt signal has been changed, the plurality of multimedia graphic objects may first slide at a speed lower than the sliding speed corresponding to the tilt degree of the tilt signal, and then the sliding speed of the plurality of multimedia graphic objects is increased to correspond to the tilt degree of the tilt signal. In this way, when a user browses the plurality of multimedia graphic objects and misses a multimedia graphic object to select, the user may conveniently return to select the multimedia graphic object to select. The sliding speed of the plurality of multimedia graphic objects may also be set to a fixed speed.
In combination with the embodiments relating to a GUI on a display in a multimedia apparatus and a graphic object browsing method and system thereof according to this disclosure, an implementation example in which a user browses a multimedia graphic object is provided as follows. In this implementation example, the remote control apparatus 101 is a handheld remote control embedded with a sensor. In the initial setting, a horizontal angle of the sensor may first be calibrated.
After receiving the tilt signal, the multimedia control unit 103 may obtain the tilt direction and the tilt angle according to the tilt signal. Accordingly, the main displaying area 201 may begin to tilt to the left according to the tilt direction and the tilt angle, as shown in
As the plurality of multimedia graphic objects slides, the multimedia graphic objects originally displayed in the item selection area 251 slide out of the item selection area 251, and are replaced with other multimedia graphic objects sliding into the item selection area 251 from the item displaying area 252. Meanwhile, if the tilt signal shifts to the left, a multimedia graphic object at the left edge of the main displaying area 201 slides out of the displaying range and disappears, and a multimedia graphic object originally not displayed in the main displaying area 201 is added at the right edge of the main displaying area 201 through a sliding movement.
In this implementation example, when a multimedia graphic object that a user intends to select appears, it is possible that the user cannot select the multimedia graphic object due to the excessively high sliding speed when the multimedia graphic object is displayed in the item selection area 251. At this time, the user may tilt the remote control apparatus 101 in the opposite direction. When the received tilt signal is rotated from a certain direction to another direction, the sliding speed of the plurality of multimedia graphic objects in the main displaying area 201 in an opposite direction may be slightly lower than that in an ordinary state, and then is restored to the original sliding speed, for example, the left-tilting direction in
When the multimedia graphic object that the user intends to select is displayed in the item selection area 251, the user may select the multimedia graphic object by inputting a selection signal. In this implementation example, the selection signal may be converted from a detected rolling-over movement of the remote control apparatus 101. According to another embodiment of this disclosure, the selection signal may be converted from a signal input by the user by pressing keys. According to another embodiment of this disclosure, the selection signal may be converted from a body movement of the user captured by the camera. According to another embodiment of this disclosure, the selection signal may be converted from a sound instruction of a user received by a microphone. It should be noted that the aforesaid embodiments regarding the selection signal are used for illustrative purpose only and this disclosure is not limited to those embodiments. As shown in
According to an embodiment of this disclosure, the main displaying area 201 may display the plurality of multimedia graphic objects in a head-to-tail manner. For example, if the plurality of multimedia graphic objects comprises graphic objects representing Channels 1 to 100, the main displaying area 201 may display five continuous channels, for example, Channels 21 to 25. When Channel 100 is displayed, Channels 97, 98, 99, 100 and 1 may be displayed in sequence in the main displaying area 201. In this way, the user may browse the multimedia graphic object in either tilt direction, so the time for sliding to the multimedia graphic object that the user intends to select may be reduced.
According to an embodiment of this disclosure, the main displaying area 201 may preset a subset of the multimedia graphic objects. For example, an item frequently browsed by the user may be preset. When the user browses the preset multimedia graphic objects, the sliding speed may become lower for ease of selection by the user. According to an embodiment of this disclosure, the preset multimedia graphic objects may be consecutively arranged, not subject to the original sequence of the multimedia graphic objects. Meanwhile, different users may respectively have a set of preset multimedia graphic objects, so each user can select a multimedia graphic object more conveniently.
The tilt direction of the tilt signal according to this disclosure is not limited to the tilt to the left or to the right, and may also correspond to other tilt directions, as in cases where the user moves the remote control apparatus 101 up and down to achieve a purpose of generating the tilt signal. Similarly, the sliding direction of the multimedia graphic object displayed in the tilt movement displaying area 202 is not limited to the sliding from upper right to lower left and the sliding from upper left to lower right neither, and should cover any sliding direction in a three-dimensional space.
In view of the foregoing description, this disclosure uses life experiences of an ordinary user, such as the concept that an object slides off a flat surface when tilting, as an operation reference for graphic object browsing. Accordingly, the operation of the graphic object browsing system according to the embodiments of this disclosure can be achieved by watching graphic object arrangement displayed by a display, and when the tilt begins, graphic objects on a picture begin to slide off. A greater tilt angle corresponds to a greater sliding speed, which conforms to the common sense of daily life. Compared with a conventional displaying interface, the GUI and the graphic object browsing method and system thereof according to this disclosure are more intuitive, and are also more convenient for fast browsing and easy operation of a user.
The above-described exemplary embodiments are intended to be illustrative only. Those skilled in the art may devise numerous alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 099139153 | Nov 2010 | TW | national |
