Patent Application
20190302963
The subject disclosure is directed to machine vision and human computer interfaces, and more particularly to touch tracking of human user touches of arbitrary and ordinary surfaces.
Conventionally, touch interfaces have become ubiquitous for small screen devices due to the popularity of touchscreen-based smartphones and tablets. However, for much larger displays, touchscreens remain expensive and can be intrusive to install in some environments. On the other hand, walls, tables, and other relatively flat surfaces are already present in many spaces, and with the introduction of digital projectors and low-cost depth camera technologies, opportunities exist of transforming these everyday surfaces into large, touch sensitive displays.
Free-space hand and finger tracking has been studied extensively. However, comparatively little research has examined finger tracking on ordinary, arbitrary, or ad hoc surfaces. Research reveals that it is a non-trivial challenge to reliably identify a finger apart from such backgrounds and to extract its spatial position and sensing when a finger that has physically contacted a surface (e.g., versus merely hovering in close proximity to the surfaces).
Conventional depth cameras can offer a promising approach for sensing finger contacts. As a non-limiting example, research has demonstrated the feasibility of this approach for detecting touches on arbitrary surfaces, but conventional implementations are not without drawbacks. As a further non-limiting example, while conventional systems demonstrate promise for depth-based touch tracking systems, practical implementations remain elusive, as the high degree of accuracy and robust touch tracking required for practical implementations are hindered by limited capabilities of conventional depth camera systems. For instance, conventional depth camera sensors, with limited depth resolution and complicating noise characteristics, typically result in sensed fingers merging into the surface of interest at longer ranges, making precise touch detection extremely difficult.
The above-described deficiencies of conventional touch tracking techniques are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems and methods, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with conventional systems and corresponding benefits of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein may become further apparent upon review of the various non-limiting embodiments of the following description.
The following presents a simplified summary of the specification to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the specification. This summary is not an extensive overview of the specification. It is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of the specification nor delineate any scope particular to any embodiments of the specification, or any scope of the claims. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of the specification in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
In various non-limiting embodiments, the disclosed subject matter provides novel touch tracking systems and methods. In non-limiting aspects, the disclosed subject matter can facilitate merging information from depth sensor imagery and infrared sensor imagery produced by one or more commodity sensor(s) to robustly and accurately detect finger touches on ordinary, arbitrary, or ad hoc surfaces within the field of view of the one or more commodity sensor(s), with accuracy exceeding the noise level of the depth image sensor, as described herein.
Accordingly, non-limiting embodiments of the disclosed subject matter can receive, by a system including a processor, depth image information and infrared image information associated with a surface and arm positions, hand positions, or finger positions associated with a user and relative to the surface, wherein the infrared image information is registered with the depth image information. Exemplary embodiments can comprise computing an edge map based on the infrared image information and computing a depth map based on the depth image information, in non-limiting aspects. In further non-limiting implementations, exemplary methods can comprise determining one or more finger position of the finger positions relative to the surface, based on the depth map as constrained at least in part by the edge map and anthropometric data related to the arm positions, the hand positions, or the finger positions relative to the surface, and determining that a touch of the surface has occurred by comparing a distance above the surface of the at least one finger position against a touch threshold. In addition, further example implementations are directed to exemplary systems comprising a finger identification component configured to determine a finger position of a number of finger positions relative to a surface, based on a depth map, as constrained in part by the edge map and anthropometric data related to the arm positions, the hand positions, or the finger positions relative to the surface, and a touch tracking component configured to determine that a touch of the surface has occurred by comparing a distance above the surface of the finger position against a touch threshold, as further detailed herein. In further non-limiting implementations, exemplary systems can comprise, a depth map component configured to compute the depth map based on depth image information associated with the surface and arm positions, hand positions, or finger positions associated with a user and relative to the surface, and an edge map component configured to compute an edge map based on infrared image information associated with the arm positions, the hand positions, or the finger positions, wherein the infrared image information is registered with the depth image information, for example, as further described herein.
These and other features of the disclosed subject matter are described in more detail below.
The devices, components, systems, and methods of the disclosed subject matter are further described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
Overview
As described above, a high degree of accuracy and robust touch tracking required for practical touch tracking implementations are hindered by limited capabilities of conventional depth camera systems employed in conventional touch tracking techniques. As non-limiting examples, various conventional touch tracking technologies are described as an aid to understanding the disclosed novel touch tracking systems and methods and not limitation.
As used herein, the term, “surface,” is used to refer to any physical medium in which a finger can interact and for which user interaction is to be tracked, typically by determining and tracking a “touch” of the surface. However, it can be understood that the term, “surface,” can be associated with a plurality objects having multiple surfaces, and, being defined by physical model (e.g., by a mean distance away from a sensor, characterized by a standard deviation, etc.), can be associated with an actual, physical surface or collection of physical surfaces associated with the plurality objects, that are characterized by the “surface,” in the disclosed embodiments. By way of non-limiting example, a wall can be characterized as a “surface,” a table can be characterized as a “surface,” and the combination of the wall and the table can be characterized as a surface, without limitation, whether or not the object is rigid or flexible, and whether or not the one or more objects have contiguous surfaces. In addition, as used herein, the terms, “edge map” and “edge map information,” are used interchangeably to refer to information or data, regardless of data structure, concerning an “edge,” wherein an “edge” can be understood to be associated with a physical demarcation between one or more objects' physical boundaries or a physical discontinuity between different objects in a scene. Thus, while the term “edge map” can be conventionally understood to refer to a product of an edge filter algorithm on a two-dimensional (2D) image (e.g., typically resulting in a 2D image of detected edges), which may also identify edges based on color differences, shading, etc., it can be understood that the descriptions herein are provided as an aid to understanding the disclosed embodiments and not limitation of the herein appended claims. As a result, it can be understood that the terms, “edge map” and “edge map information,” and so on, can refer to a 2D image of detected edges and/or other data structures that can be used to store or communication data or information associated with one or more “edges,” which can refer to physical demarcations between one or more objects' physical boundaries.
For instance, some conventional touch tracking techniques instrument the surface itself, either by using a surface designed for touch sensing (e.g., infrared touch surface, capacitive touch surface, etc.). In other conventional touch tracking techniques, ordinary surfaces can be instrumented with sensors, such as acoustic sensors to detect the sound of a tap or infrared emitters and receivers to detect the occlusion of a finger (e.g. infrared touchscreens, etc.). In still other conventional touch tracking techniques that operate on ad hoc uninstrumented surfaces, such techniques typically employ a sensing approach external to the surface itself. Some conventional examples include optical (e.g., camera) sensors, Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), and so on.
However, as described above, detecting whether a finger has contacted the surface is challenging with ordinary red/green/blue (RGB) or infrared cameras. Some conventional examples can include touch tracking based on analyzing shadows cast by a finger near the surface, touch tracking based on tracking the visual change in the fingernail when it is pressed against a surface, touch tracking employing a stereo pair of cameras, detecting touches when the finger images overlap on a surface plane, etc. Other conventional examples can employ finger dwell time or an external sensor (e.g., an accelerometer, a microphone or acoustic sensor, etc.) to detect touch events.
Still further conventional examples, employing depth camera-based touch tracking systems, which can be employed to sense physical distance from the sensor to each point in the field of view, illustrate that a high degree of accuracy and robust touch tracking required for practical touch tracking implementations are hindered by limited capabilities of conventional depth camera systems employed in conventional touch tracking techniques. As a non-limiting example, in conventional background modeling methods, conventional touch tracking techniques typically compute and store a model or snapshot of the depth background, and touches are detected where the live depth data differs from the background depth map in specific ways. A typical conventional example employs a background snapshot computed from the maximum depth point observed at each pixel over a window of time, whereas, still another employs a background model developed by analyzing the 3D structure of the scene from multiple angles, effectively providing a statistically derived background map. In still other conventional background modeling methods, non-limiting examples can employ a statistical model of the background, which can employ computing the mean and standard deviation (e.g., average noise) at each pixel.
As a further non-limiting example, in conventional finger modeling methods, conventional touch tracking techniques typically detect shapes of fingers (e.g., by using template matching, etc.), such as by employing a slice finding approach to locate characteristic cylindrical shapes of fingers in depth images, reconstructing the finger from a series of cylindrical slices, and inferring touches at the tip of the finger. Another typical conventional example models the background as a mesh and foreground objects as particles (rather than specifically as touches).
However, conventional touch tracking techniques typically do not fuse depth sensing with other sensing modalities for touch tracking. In a non-limiting example employing sensor fusion depth-sensing systems, a conventional touch tracking technique employs a multisensory approach for touch tracking, combining depth sensing with thermal imaging infrared camera that detects residual body heat on the surface, for which practical implementations are hindered by significant amount of latency (e.g., on the order of 200 milliseconds (ms)), which can provide a frustrating user experience.
Thus, to the foregoing and related ends, systems, devices, and methods are disclosed that can facilitate novel touch tracking systems and methods according to various aspects of the disclosed subject matter, among other related functions. In non-limiting aspects, the disclosed subject matter can facilitate merging information from depth sensor imagery and infrared sensor imagery produced by one or more commodity sensor(s) to robustly and accurately detect finger touches on ordinary, arbitrary, or ad hoc surfaces within the field of view of the one or more commodity sensor(s), with accuracy exceeding the noise level of the depth image sensor, as described herein. Accordingly, the subject disclosure provides non-limiting embodiments of a system, which includes the implementation of the novel method, referred to herein as DIRECT (Depth and IR Enhanced Contact Tracking). It can be understood that references to the particular non-limiting embodiment of DIRECT, as referred to herein, are provided as an aid to understanding an exemplary practical implementation of the non-limiting touch tracking algorithm that can facilitate merging depth sensor image information and infrared sensor image information, which, in some embodiments can be facilitated by a single sensor), and that can facilitate providing significantly enhanced finger tracking. As a result, various non-limiting implementations of the claims appended hereto, according to the various aspects described herein, are not limited to such non-limiting embodiments referred to herein as a DIRECT implementation.
In further non-limiting aspects, exemplary embodiments can employ infrared sensor imagery to facilitate providing precise finger boundaries and edges and can further employ depth sensor imagery to facilitate providing precise finger touch detection. In yet another non-limiting aspect, employing infrared sensor information facilitates robustly rejecting tracking errors arising from noisy depth image information. Accordingly, in particular non-limiting embodiment, DIRECT, various non-limiting embodiments can facilitate the creation of a precise 2.3 meter (m) (diagonal) touchscreen on an ordinary unmodified surface (e.g., a wood table, etc.), using only commercially available commodity hardware (e.g., Microsoft® Kinect™ 2 sensor, projector, commodity personal computer (PC), etc). As further provided herein, various non-limiting embodiments are demonstrated to outperform these conventional touch tracking techniques with respect to viable distance, touch accuracy, touch stability, false positives and false negatives, and so on.
While a brief overview has been described above in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the specification, various non-limiting devices, systems, and methods are now described as a further aid in understanding the advantages and benefits of various embodiments of the disclosed subject matter. To that end, it can be understood that such descriptions are provided merely for illustration and not limitation.
Accordingly,
In non-limiting examples, exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 comprising exemplary depth image sensor 104 can be configured to provide depth image information. In a further non-limiting aspect, exemplary depth image information can comprise image information associated with a surface (e.g., an ordinary, arbitrary, or ad hoc surface, etc.) and one or more of arm positions, hand positions, or finger positions associated with a user, wherein the image information comprises depth information of the aforementioned relative to the surface. In other non-limiting implementations, exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 can be configured to transmit and/or receive depth image information to or from other systems, devices, and so on, to facilitate performing various techniques, functions, algorithms, etc. described herein.
In further non-limiting examples, exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 comprising exemplary infrared image sensor 106 can be configured to provide infrared image information. In further non-limiting aspect, exemplary infrared image information can comprise image information associated with a surface (e.g., an ordinary, arbitrary, or ad hoc surface, etc.) and/or one or more of arm positions, hand positions, or finger positions associated with the user, wherein the image information comprises infrared information of the aforementioned relative to the surface. In still further non-limiting aspects, exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 can employ infrared image information that is registered with the depth image information, as depicted in
In further non-limiting examples, exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 comprising exemplary depth map component 108 can be configured to compute a depth map based on depth image information associated with the surface and one or more of arm positions, hand positions, or finger positions associated with a user and relative to the surface, for example, as further described herein, regarding
In still further non-limiting examples, exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 comprising exemplary finger identification component 112 can be configured to determine one or more finger position of the finger positions relative to the surface, based on the depth map as constrained in part by the edge map information (e.g., based on infrared image information, based on the depth image information, etc.) and anthropometric data related to one or more of the arm positions, the hand positions, or the finger positions relative to the surface, for example, as further described herein, regarding
Other non-limiting examples of exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 comprising exemplary UI component 116 can be configured to generate user interface information for display onto the surface that corresponds to the touch of the surface, as further described herein. As a non-limiting example, exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 comprising exemplary display component 118 can be configured to display user interface information onto the surface that corresponds to the touch of the surface, as described herein. In other non-limiting implementations, exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 can be configured to transmit and/or receive user interface information to or from other systems, devices, and so on, to facilitate performing various techniques, functions, algorithms, etc. described herein.
In further non-limiting examples, exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 comprising exemplary infrared image sensor 106 can comprise one or more exemplary data store(s) 120, for example, such as described herein, regarding
Referring again to
As depicted in
Accordingly, an exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102 (e.g., the particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT) can be configured to model both the background and one or more of arms, hands, and fingers associated with the user, thus, effectively combining background modeling and finger modeling to facilitate providing practical touch tracking implementations having a high degree of accuracy and robust touch tracking. In a further non-limiting aspect, an exemplary processing pipeline can be optimized so that it runs at the full 30 fps using a single core of the PC.
In view of the example embodiments described supra, methods that can be implemented in accordance with the disclosed subject matter will be better appreciated with reference to the flowcharts of
In a further non-limiting example, exemplary methods 400 can comprise, at 404, computing (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary depth map component 108, portions thereof, etc.) a depth map based on the depth image information, for example, as further described herein, regarding
In another non-limiting example, exemplary methods 400 can comprise, at 406, receiving (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary infrared image sensor 106, portions thereof, etc.) infrared image information (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.) associated with the arm positions, the hand positions, or the finger positions, wherein the infrared image information is registered with the depth image information, for example, as further described herein, regarding
In a further non-limiting example, exemplary methods 400 can comprise, at 408, computing (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary edge map component 110, portions thereof, etc.) edge map information (e.g., based on the infrared image information, based on the depth image information, etc.), for example, as further described herein, regarding
In still other non-limiting examples, exemplary methods 400 can comprise, at 410, determining (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) one or more finger position of the finger positions relative to the surface, based on the depth map as constrained at least in part by the edge map information and anthropometric data related to one or more of the arm positions, the hand positions, or the finger positions relative to the surface, for example, as further described herein, regarding
Additionally, in a non-limiting aspect, exemplary methods 400 can further comprise segmenting (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) the depth map into one or more of a high zone, a medium zone, and a low zone, wherein boundaries between the one or more of depth zones can be derived from the anthropometric data related to the arm positions, the hand positions, or the finger positions, for example, as further described herein, regarding
In further non-limiting examples, exemplary methods 400 can comprise sequentially determining (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) the pixels associated with the one or more depth zones, as described herein. For instance, sequentially determining (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) the pixels associated with the one or more depth zones can comprise identifying (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) the pixels associated with the one or more depth zones in the high zone as arm pixels, identifying (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) the pixels associated with the one or more depth zones in the medium zone as hand pixels, and/or identifying (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) the pixels associated with the one or more depth zones in the low zone as finger pixels, and identifying (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) the pixels associated with the one or more depth zones in the noise zone as fingertip pixels, for example, as further described herein, regarding
In further non-limiting examples, exemplary methods 400 can comprise, determining (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) the one or more finger position based on the depth map as a result of one or more of the identified discontinuity in the edge map, identifying (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) pixels that do extend beyond the edge of the edge map information, or identifying (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary finger identification component 112, portions thereof, etc.) pixels that do extend beyond the threshold distance from the hand pixels based on the anthropometric data, for example, as further described herein, regarding
In other non-limiting examples, exemplary methods 400 can comprise, at 412, determining (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary touch tracking component 114, portions thereof, etc.) that a touch of the surface has occurred by comparing a distance above the surface of the one or more finger position against a touch threshold, for example, as further described herein, regarding
In other non-limiting implementations, exemplary methods 400 can comprise generating (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, exemplary UI component 116, portions thereof, etc.) user interface information for display (e.g., via exemplary display component 118) onto the surface that corresponds to the touch of the surface.
In addition, in further non-limiting aspects, exemplary embodiments can employ dynamic updating of the background model or depth map at 506, in which, for each pixel, the background mean and standard deviation can be continually computed for a running window T (e.g., an exemplary 5 second window of depth image information 502 data, etc.). In further non-limiting aspects, if the standard deviation for a pixel exceeds a predetermined depth-dependent threshold (e.g., a predetermined depth-dependent threshold accounting for higher average noise further from the sensor, etc.), the pixel background model mean and standard deviation can be held constant until the moving average drops below the predetermined depth-dependent threshold. According to non-limiting aspects, embodiments employing the predetermined depth-dependent threshold to facilitate dynamic updating of the background model or depth map can facilitate accurately tracking long-term changes in the environment (e.g., objects being moved around the surface), while ignoring short-term changes (e.g., hands and fingers actively interacting with interfaces). In another example embodiment, the background model or depth map can be updated in a separate processor thread, for example, running at a fraction of the depth image information 502 rate (e.g., 15 fps versus 30 fps of the depth image information 502, etc.), which can avoid excessive dynamic updating of the background model or depth map. It is further noted that highly stationary hands and fingers could theoretically be “integrated into the background” by employing dynamic updating of the background model or depth map. However, it is further noted that, in practice, users rarely stay stationary for several seconds over top of active touch interfaces. In further non-limiting aspects, dynamic updating of the background model or depth map can facilitate accommodating shifts in the background or surface environment, whereas conventional background modeling typically employed only a single static background model captured during initial setup.
In further non-limiting examples, exemplary implementations can employ infrared edge detection, as described herein. For example, exemplary implementations can employ infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.) to facilitate detecting a boundary between the fingertip and the surrounding surface, for example, as depicted in
It can be appreciated that, after locate candidate edge pixels in the infrared image information 510, employing an edge filter, some edges may have gaps or discontinuities, which can occur due to, for example, multiple edges meeting at a point, etc. Thus, in further non-limiting aspects, at 516, it can be determined whether one or more gaps or discontinuities exists for the candidate edge pixels to create the edge map at 518, which edge map 520 can be employed elsewhere in exemplary algorithms, as further described herein. In still further non-limiting aspects, exemplary embodiments can perform a gap-filling algorithm (e.g., an exemplary edge-linking algorithm, etc.) to gap fill candidate edges at 522 across the edge map. As a non-limiting example, an exemplary gap-filling algorithm can process edge boundaries (e.g., Canny edge boundaries, etc.) and can bridge one-pixel gaps or discontinuities between neighboring edges, for example, to fill a gap or discontinuities if it encounters the end of an edge while traversing it, and if the edge is within a predetermined number of pixels (e.g., 2 pixels, etc.) of another edge, in still further non-limiting aspects. It is noted that surfaces with a very similar infrared albedo to skin could cause issues for edge finding, but according to various embodiments described herein, shadows cast by the arm and hand (e.g., illuminated by an active IR emitter found associated with conventional depth cameras), even near the fingertip, can facilitate increasing contrast. It is further noted that, after applying an exemplary gap-filling algorithm, fingertips and hands are usually clearly enclosed by edge boundaries. However, whereupon encountering larger edge gaps or discontinuities, an exemplary gap-filling algorithm as described herein can store (e.g., via one or more exemplary data store(s) 120, etc.) such gaps or discontinuities 524, which can be employed elsewhere in exemplary algorithms, as further described herein.
It can be understood that, while
Exemplary non-limiting results of above described process can be seen for example, as depicted in
As can be seen in
Accordingly, pixel distance from the background in absolute units (mm), and in terms of the pixel's background standard deviation (z-units) at 806, in further non-limiting aspects. At 808, pixels can be identified or classified as “error pixels,” for example, for pixels that are further than an error threshold (e.g., 1 cm, etc.) from the background, as the background should represent the maximum depth of the background model or depth map 508, in a non-limiting aspect. It is noted that such error pixels can arise due to multipath interference with the depth sensor and due to objects moving around on the surface. In a further non-limiting aspect, error pixels can be disregarded in the various embodiments described herein. In still another non-limiting aspect, pixels that differ in height by less than a noise threshold, one standard deviation (e.g., one standard deviation or one z unit), etc. from the background can be identified or classified at 810 as “noise” pixels, as they lie below the noise threshold of the background model or depth map 508. It is noted that, the domain of such noise pixels is, by anthropometric considerations based on the anthropometric data 804, domain of interest to facilitate touch tracking, as described herein.
In further non-limiting aspects, because remaining pixels are significantly different from the background, such pixels, by anthropometric considerations based on the anthropometric data 804, can be considered potential arm or hand pixels. Accordingly, in a further non-limiting embodiment, such pixels can be further divided into zones (e.g., a “high” zone at 812, a “low” zone at 814, and a “medium” zone at 816), based on pixel distance from the background and a threshold based on based on the anthropometric data 804. As particular non-limiting examples, a low-medium (LM) threshold can be set at 12 mm, and a medium-high (MH) threshold can be set at 50 mm). Accordingly, as can be seen
As described above, anthropometric data 804 can be employed to facilitate determining the various zones, thresholds, and so on employed to facilitate touch tracking as described herein. In a particular non-limiting example, arm pixels can be defined as pixels that are at least 5 cm closer to image sensors than the background mean (e.g., pixels that are at least 5 cm above the surface), which high threshold can facilitate unambiguously distinguishing human activity from background noise, where standard deviations (noise) at the edge of the depth map 508 can reach approximately 1.5 cm (e.g., 5 cm is more than 3 standard deviations away) and to facilitate detection of human forearms even when laid totally flat on the surface (e.g., where 6.3 cm is the 2.5th percentile diameter of a human forearm). In further non-limiting examples, hand pixels can be defined as pixels that are at least 12 mm from the surface, which threshold can facilitate segmenting individual fingers apart from the hand (e.g., where 12 mm is the 2.5th percentile thickness of a human finger) and facilitating detection of even small fingers laying flat on a table. In still further non-limiting examples, finger tip pixels of interest, which are by definition, below the background noise, can be constrained if the finger tip pixels extend more than 15 cm from the finger base (e.g., allowing both the longest human fingers having mean length 8.6 cm, SD 0.5, and is 2 standard deviations above the mean palm center to fingertip length (mean 12.9 cm, SD 0.8)).
In addition, exemplary flood fill rules can be defined on the classification of pixels, capture properties of the depth image information 502 (e.g., via exemplary depth image sensor 104, etc.) and infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.), etc. For instance, at 902, high pixels, which can be employed to identify parts of arms as they are substantially far away from the background, an exemplary flood fill algorithm can be employed to extract blobs of high confidence pixels, flooding down to the MH threshold, which can employ depth image information 502 (e.g., via exemplary depth image sensor 104, etc.), without relying on the infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.), as the high pixels are readily segmented.
In addition, at 904, continuing with pixels bounding the high area, an exemplary flood fill algorithm can be employed to fill downwards towards the LM threshold and the low pixels to identify “hands” pixels fill, wherein the exemplary flood fill algorithm can be constrained to avoid pixels with high depth variance in their local neighborhood, to ensure that this flood fill does not simply fill into noisy pixels surrounding the arm. At 906, an exemplary flood fill algorithm can be employed to fill into the low pixels, wherein the exemplary flood fill algorithm can be constrained to stay within the edge map 520 (e.g., infrared edge map, etc.) information derived from infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.). In a further non-limiting aspect, in the event of identified gaps or discontinuities 524, the exemplary flood fill algorithm can be stopped at noise pixels (e.g., pixel distance less than one standard deviation (e.g., one z unit) from the background) to constrain the flood fill within the bounds reliable data. In yet another non-limiting aspect, resulting filled low pixels can be considered a candidate finger.
At 908, an exemplary flood fill algorithm can be employed to fill into the noise pixels (e.g., pixel distance less than one standard deviation (e.g., one z unit) from the background), and a further non-limiting aspect, wherein the fill is constrained to stay within the edge map 520 (e.g., infrared edge map, etc.) information derived from infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.). It can be understood that, because depth values no longer constrain this fill, any hole in the infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.) or edge map 520 can cause the flood fill algorithm to flood uncontrollably onto the surface. Thus, in a further non-limiting aspect, in the event of identified gaps or discontinuities 524, the exemplary flood fill algorithm can be stopped, based anthropometric considerations based on the anthropometric data 804. As a non-limiting example, if the furthest pixel visited by the exemplary flood fill algorithm is more than a maximum expected distance from the seed point (e.g., 15 cm, a distance much longer than most human fingers, etc.), then the exemplary flood fill algorithm can be inferred to have approached an overfill condition. If an overfill condition is detected at 910, the exemplary flood fill algorithm can reset all flooded pixels and return a failure indication, in a further non-limiting aspect, which can facilitate exemplary touch tracking embodiments system to gracefully fall back to touch tracking based on employing depth image information 502 (e.g., via exemplary depth image sensor 104, etc.) only at 914, without relying on the infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.), in the event that the infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.) is unusable for any reason (e.g. because there are holes in the edge image), which can facilitate touch tracking by exemplary embodiments, albeit with reduced performance, in cluttered or complex environments, such as when the edge map 520 is damaged or unusable. Accordingly, if an overfill condition is not detected at 910, the exemplary flood fill algorithm can add the finger “tip” pixels to the parent “finger's” pixels, to facilitate determining finger position at 912, as further described herein, for example, which can be seen as depicted as gradients of pixels in
As described above, non-limiting implementations can employ depth map segmentation of depth image information 502 (e.g., via exemplary depth image sensor 104, etc.) into two or more zones, to facilitate touch tracking as described herein, in non-limiting aspects, such that various non-limiting embodiments can infer which pixels should be identified or classified by employing depth image information 502 (e.g., via exemplary depth image sensor 104, etc.), without relying on the infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.), and can infer which pixels should be identified or classified by employing edge map information derived from infrared image information 510 (e.g., via exemplary infrared image sensor 106, etc.), or otherwise, in addition to depth image information 502 (e.g., via exemplary depth image sensor 104, etc.).
Accordingly,
For example, as further described herein, a statistical model of the background (e.g., computing the mean and standard deviation, or average noise, at each pixel), for example, such as for depth map 508 can facilitate establishing both a highly accurate mean background depth as well as a noise profile at every pixel in the scene for the surface, in further non-limiting aspects. As such, pixels that differ in height by less than a noise threshold, one standard deviation (e.g., one standard deviation or one z unit), etc. from the background can be identified or classified at 810 as “noise” pixels, as they lie below the noise threshold of the background model or depth map 508, whereas pixels that differ in height by more than a noise threshold, one standard deviation (e.g., one standard deviation or one z unit in the background model), etc., from the background can be identified or classified at 1002 as “above-noise” pixels, as they lie above the noise threshold of the background model or depth map 508, in further non-limiting aspects. In addition, as further described above regarding
In further non-limiting implementations, after determining fingertip pixel position and distance from the surface at 1502, whether a touch of the surface has occurred can be determined by averaging the depth differences (e.g. distance above the surface) corresponding to a predetermined number of finger/tip pixels (e.g., 8 finger/tip pixels in a particular non-limiting implementation) with the highest distance (e.g., highest distance to the nearest connected medium-or-higher pixel (hand pixel)), and compare the result against a predetermined touch threshold at 1504. In a further numbering aspect, hysteresis can be employed to avoid rapid flips in touch state. In a further non-limiting aspect, predetermined touch threshold used herein could be configured to take into account, anthropometric data 804, physical size of a detected finger, etc., since a finger's thickness can correlate to its width, to enable extremely accurate hover/click detection across a wide range of users. In various embodiments, if no touch of the surface has been determined to have occurred at 1506, the process can repeat by returning back to
Accordingly, various non-limiting embodiments as described herein, can facilitate touch tracking for a surface (e.g., an ordinary, arbitrary, or ad hoc surface, etc.). In the particular non-limiting example described herein (e.g., DIRECT), various embodiments can merge aspects of optical tracking, background modeling, and finger modeling. As further described herein, compared to depth-only methods, the touch points detected by the particular non-limiting example described herein (e.g., DIRECT) are more stable, as the infrared estimation provides pixel-accurate detection of the finger-tip. Consequently, the particular non-limiting example described herein (e.g., DIRECT) requires no temporal touch smoothing to work well, allowing it to have very low latency (15 ms average) without sacrificing accuracy. In addition, while the particular non-limiting example described herein (e.g., DIRECT) employs aspects of finger modeling, it can be understood that various embodiments as described herein do not directly model the shape of fingers, nor do they make assumptions about the shape of the touch contact area. As a result, the particular non-limiting example described herein (e.g., DIRECT) is capable of tracking touches when fingers assume unusual configurations, such as holding all fingers together, which flexibility enables more advanced interactions (e.g., gestural touches), as well as allowing users to be more flexible with their input. However, it can be understood that the particular non-limiting example described herein (e.g., DIRECT) is provided as an aid to understanding various non-limiting aspects, and not limitation. As a result, it can be further understood that various aspects as described herein should not be construed as essential, preferable, and/or required elements of the subject claims appended hereto, nor should the particular non-limiting embodiments described herein, along with design choices specifically included or excluded in the various descriptions herein be construed comprising a beneficial effect, advantage, and/or improvement without considering the context, as merely exemplary in nature.
In view of the example embodiments described supra, devices and systems that can be implemented in accordance with the disclosed subject matter will be better appreciated with reference to the flowcharts of
As a non-limiting example,
Nevertheless, it can be understood that various non-limiting embodiments as described herein can be realized by virtually in this combinations of components, subcomponents, combinations, sub combinations, and so on. Accordingly,
For example,
In addition, device or system 1700 comprising exemplary non-limiting touch tracking devices or systems 102, or portions thereof, can comprise one or more memories and/or storage components (e.g., one or more exemplary data store(s) 120, or otherwise, etc.) to store computer-executable components (e.g., one or more of exemplary depth map component 108, exemplary edge map component 110, exemplary finger identification component 112, exemplary touch tracking component 114, exemplary UI component 116, exemplary display component 118, depth segmentation component 1602, pixel identification component 1604, and/or analysis component 1606, and/or other complementary and/or ancillary components or subcomponents, etc.) and/or one or more processors communicatively coupled to the memory that facilitates execution of the computer-executable components, for example, as further described herein.
Thus,
To these and related ends, one or more processors 1704 can be associated with any number of computer-executable components (e.g., one or more of exemplary depth map component 108, exemplary edge map component 110, exemplary finger identification component 112, exemplary touch tracking component 114, exemplary UI component 116, exemplary display component 118, depth segmentation component 1602, pixel identification component 1604, and/or analysis component 1606, and/or other complementary and/or ancillary components or subcomponents, etc.) to facilitate functionality described herein. In a non-limiting example, device or system 1700 comprising exemplary non-limiting touch tracking devices or systems 102, or portions thereof, can facilitate, among other things, analyzing information associated with one or more images, image streams, portions thereof, derivative information, performing one or more analyses, determining results of the one or more analyses, and/or generate results, reports, inferences, and/or recommendations, compose and/or respond to requests or queries, etc., for example, as further described herein, regarding
As further described above regarding
As a non-limiting example, in an example implementation, device or system 1700 comprising exemplary non-limiting touch tracking devices or systems 102 as described herein, for example, or portions thereof, can further comprise a authentication component that can solicit authentication data via exemplary UI component 116 (e.g., via an operating system, and/or application software, etc.) on behalf of a user, or otherwise, and, upon receiving authentication data so solicited, can be employed, individually and/or in conjunction with information acquired and ascertained as a result of biometric modalities employed (e.g., facial recognition, voice recognition, etc.), verifying received authentication data, and so on. The authentication data can be in the form of a password (e.g., a sequence of humanly cognizable characters), a pass phrase (e.g., a sequence of alphanumeric characters that can be similar to a typical password but is conventionally of greater length and contains non-humanly cognizable characters in addition to humanly cognizable characters), a pass code (e.g., Personal Identification Number (PIN)), encryption key, and so on, for example.
Additionally and/or alternatively, public key infrastructure (PM) data can also be employed by authentication component. PKI arrangements can provide for trusted third parties to vet, and affirm, entity identity through the use of public keys that typically can be certificates issued by trusted third parties. Such arrangements can enable entities to be authenticated to each other, and to use information in certificates (e.g., public keys) and private keys, session keys, Traffic Encryption Keys (TEKs), cryptographic-system-specific keys, and/or other keys, to encrypt and decrypt messages communicated between entities.
Accordingly, an example authentication component can implement one or more machine-implemented techniques a user of exemplary UI component 116 (e.g., via an operating system and/or application software) on behalf of the user, by the user's unique physical and behavioral characteristics and attributes. Biometric modalities that can be employed can comprise, for example, face recognition wherein measurements of key points on an entity's face can provide a unique pattern that can be associated with the entity, iris recognition that measures from the outer edge towards the pupil the patterns associated with the colored part of the eye—the iris—to detect unique features associated with an entity's iris, voice recognition, and/or finger print identification that scans the corrugated ridges of skin that are non-continuous and form a pattern that can provide distinguishing features to identify an entity. Moreover, any of the components described herein (e.g., authentication component, etc.) can be configured to perform the described functionality (e.g., via computer-executable instructions stored in a tangible computer readable medium, and/or executed by a computer, a processor, etc.).
In other non-limiting implementations, device or system 1700 comprising exemplary non-limiting touch tracking devices or systems 102 as described herein, for example, or portions thereof, can also comprise a cryptographic component that can facilitate encrypting and/or decrypting data and/or information associated with exemplary non-limiting touch tracking devices or systems 102 as described herein or portions thereof, to protect such sensitive data and/or information associated with a user of exemplary UI component 116, such as authentication data, etc. Thus, one or more processors can be associated with a cryptographic component. In accordance with an aspect of the disclosed subject matter, a cryptographic component can provide symmetric cryptographic tools and accelerators (e.g., Twofish, Blowfish, AES, TDES, IDEA, CASTS, RC4, etc.) to facilitate encrypting and/or decrypting data and/or information associated with exemplary UI component 116.
Thus, an example cryptographic component can facilitate securing data and/or information being written to, stored in, and/or read from a storage component (e.g., exemplary data store(s) 120, or otherwise, etc.), transmitted to and/or received from a connected network to ensure that protected data can only be accessed by those entities authorized and/or authenticated to do so. To the same ends, a cryptographic component can also provide asymmetric cryptographic accelerators and tools (e.g., RSA, Digital Signature Standard (DSS), and the like) in addition to accelerators and tools (e.g., Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) and its variants such as, for example, SHA-0, SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, SHA-3, and so on). As described, any of the components described herein (e.g., cryptographic component, etc.) can be configured to perform the described functionality (e.g., via computer-executable instructions stored in a tangible computer readable medium, and/or executed by a computer, a processor, etc.).
For still other non-limiting implementations, device or system 1700 comprising exemplary non-limiting touch tracking devices or systems 102 as described herein, for example, or portions thereof, can also comprise a storage component (e.g., (e.g., exemplary data store(s) 120, or otherwise, which can comprise one or more of a local storage component, a network storage component, a memory, other storage components or subcomponents, etc.) that can facilitate storage and/or retrieval of data and/or information associated with exemplary non-limiting touch tracking devices or systems 102. Thus, as described above, exemplary non-limiting touch tracking devices or systems 102, or portions thereof, exemplary finger identification component 112, exemplary touch tracking component 114, etc. comprising device or system, 1700, and so on, or portions thereof, can comprise one or more processors that can be associated with a storage component to facilitate storage of data and/or information, and/or instructions for performing functions associated with and/or incident to the disclosed subject matter as described herein, for example, regarding
It can be understood that a storage component can comprise one or more computer executable components as described herein, and/or portions thereof, to facilitate any of the functionality described herein and/or ancillary thereto, such as by execution of computer-executable instructions by a computer, a processor, etc. (e.g., one or more processors, etc.). Moreover, any of the components described herein (e.g., a storage component, etc.) can be configured to perform the described functionality (e.g., via computer-executable instructions stored in a tangible computer readable medium, and/or executed by a computer, a processor, etc.).
It should be noted that, as depicted in
Accordingly, device or system 1800 can comprise a memory 1802 that retains various instructions with respect to facilitating various operations, for example, such as providing functionality for, implementing the methods, procedures, algorithms, or portions thereof, as described herein, regarding
In a non-limiting example, memory 1802 can retain instructions for receiving (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102, portions thereof, etc.) depth image information 502 associated with a surface and arm positions, hand positions, or finger positions associated with a user and relative to the surface, for example, as further described above regarding
In further example implementations, memory 1802 can retain instructions for computing (e.g., by exemplary touch tracking system 102 portions thereof, etc.) an edge map 520, edge map information, etc. (e.g., based on the infrared image information 510, based on the depth image information 502, etc.), for example, as described above regarding
The above example instructions and other suitable instructions for functionalities as described herein, for example, regarding
In addition, non-limiting device or system 1800 can comprise an input component 1806 that can be configured to receive data or signals, and perform typical actions thereon (e.g., transmits to storage component 1810, one or more exemplary data store(s) 120, etc.) the received data or signal. A storage component 1810 can store the received data or signal, as described above, for example, regarding a storage component, memory 1702, etc., for subsequent processing or can provide it to one or more of depth segmentation component 1602, pixel identification component 1604, and/or analysis component 1606, and/or functionality, portions, combinations, and/or sub combinations thereof, as well as one or more of exemplary depth map component 108, exemplary edge map component 110, exemplary finger identification component 112, exemplary touch tracking component 114, exemplary UI component 116, exemplary display component 118, functionality, portions, combinations, or sub combinations thereof, or a processor (e.g., one or more processors 1704, etc.), via a memory (e.g., memory 1702, etc.) over a suitable communications bus or otherwise, or to the output component 1808.
Processor 1804 can be a processor dedicated to analyzing and performing functions on information received by input component 1802 and/or generating information for transmission by an output component 1808. Processor 1804 can be a processor that controls one or more portions of system or device 1800, and/or a processor that analyzes information received by input component 1802, generates information for transmission by output component 1808, and performs various decoding algorithms of decoding component 1806. It can be understood that various routines performed by system or device 1800 can utilize artificial intelligence based methods in connection with performing inference and/or probabilistic determinations and/or statistical-based determinations in connection with various aspects of the disclosed subject matter.
System or device 1800 can additionally comprise a memory 1802 (e.g., memory 1702, etc.) that is operatively coupled to processor 1804 and that stores information such as described above, parameters, information, and the like, wherein such information can be employed in connection with implementing various aspects as described herein. Memory 1802 can additionally store received data and/or information (e.g., data and/or information associated with exemplary touch tracking devices or systems 102, etc.), as well as software routines and/or instructions for functionality as described above in reference to
It will be understood that storage component 1810, exemplary data store(s) 120, or other storage component, memory 1702, memory 1802, and/or any combination thereof as described herein can be either volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or can comprise both volatile and nonvolatile memory. By way of illustration, and not limitation, nonvolatile memory can comprise read only memory (ROM), programmable ROM (PROM), electrically programmable ROM (EPROM), electrically erasable ROM (EEPROM), or flash memory. Volatile memory can comprise random access memory (RAM), which acts as cache memory. By way of illustration and not limitation, RAM is available in many forms such as synchronous RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), Synchlink DRAM (SLDRAM), and direct Rambus RAM (DRRAM). The memory 1802 is intended to comprise, without being limited to, these and/or any other suitable types of memory, including processor registers and the like. In addition, by way of illustration and not limitation, storage component 1810 and/or a storage component, can comprise conventional storage media as in known in the art (e.g., hard disk drive, solid state disk (SSD), etc.).
It can be understood that various techniques described herein may be implemented in connection with hardware or software or, where appropriate, with a combination of both. As used herein, the terms “device,” “component,” “system” and the like are likewise intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution. For example, a “device,” “component,” subcomponent, “system” portions thereof, and so on, may be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on computer and the computer can be a component. One or more components may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and a component may be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers.
It can be further understood that while a brief overview of example systems, methods, scenarios, and/or devices has been provided, the disclosed subject matter is not so limited. Thus, it can be further understood that various modifications, alterations, addition, and/or deletions can be made without departing from the scope of the embodiments as described herein. Accordingly, similar non-limiting implementations can be used or modifications and additions can be made to the described embodiments for performing the same or equivalent function of the corresponding embodiments without deviating therefrom.
As can be understood, in example implementations of the disclosed subject matter, various interfaces such as device interfaces, user interfaces such as GUIs, and so on can be provided, for example to facilitate touch tracking embodiments according to various aspects of the disclosed subject matter, among other related functions. In addition, additional embodiments of the disclosed subject matter can provide computer-executable components that can be stored on a tangible computer readable storage medium (e.g., a storage component, storage component 1810, memory 1702, 1802, etc.), and that, in response to execution by a computing device (e.g., one or more processors, processor 1704, 1804, etc.), can cause the computing device to display information (e.g., on the computing device, on a remote computing device over a network, etc.), for example, such as via a GUI, in addition to upon ordinary, arbitrary and/or ad hoc surfaces, as described herein. For example,
Note that in some instances a static background was used to avoid unexpected shifts in the background, in part because some of the experimental tasks required the user to hold his or her hand still, which could cause a dynamic background to incorrectly integrate the user into the background. The performance of a particular non-limiting example described herein (e.g., DIRECT) system was assessed by implementing four broad classes of conventional depth-camera-based, touch tracking methods as described above regarding
To compare the accuracy of the subject disclosure, an evaluation with 12 users (e.g., 3 female, average age 25) was conducted, all of whom were familiar with the use of touch interfaces. Participants were simply told that the table surface was a touchscreen from the outset, and to touch the surface as they would any ordinary touchscreen, were permitted to use either hand (interchangeably), were permitted to use any finger pose they found comfortable. Users were not required to remove jewelry or roll up sleeves, and some users conducted the study while wearing long sleeved shirts, bracelets and watches. The experimental system continuously ran the particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT touch tracker alongside all four of our comparison methods, and all methods ran at a constant 30 fps (e.g., the frame rate of the depth sensor).
Participants were asked to complete a series of 14 tasks, organized into three categories, wherein task order was randomized per user to avoid order effects. For each task, users were instructed to stand along one of the two long edges of the table, to change the orientation of their touch and seven tasks were performed for each table edge.
For instance,
In the multitouch box task 2004, participants were instructed to place a specific number of fingers within a projected 20 cm square on the table, and the experimenter then manually advanced the trial and the number of touches reported within the box for each tracker was recorded, to measure the multitouch contact reporting accuracy of each technique (i.e., false positive and false negative touches). Six boxes were specified across the length of the table, and the number of fingers varied from 1-5 for a total of 30 trials, randomly ordered. There were two multitouch box task 2004 instances per table edge.
The particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT (202) achieved an average Euclidean-distance positional error of 4.8 mm across all trials, with a 99.3% touch detection rate. The next best technique, slice finding 210, had an average positional error of 11.1 mm and a touch detection rate of 83.9%. The background modeling methods (204, 206, 208) all performed quite poorly, with average positional errors of over 40 mm and touch detection rates ranging from 52.1% to 84.8%, which indicates that these methods do not have the necessary sophistication to segment small finger contacts at the noise level present when sensing at 1.6 meters.
The resulting average offset-corrected errors in
To visualize these errors, the 95% confidence ellipsoids were computed
The multitouch box tasks 2004 measured false positive and false negative rates for touch detection with multiple fingers present. Under these conditions, touch trackers might merge adjacent fingers or detect spurious touches between existing fingers. Differences between the back and front sides were not significant in this task, so the results have been combined. In total, 1440 trials were collected. Detecting a single extended finger is the easiest task. In single finger trials, particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT (202) detected the correct number 95.8% of the time. Single-frame background 204, maximum frame background 206, and statistical model background 208 achieved 52.8%, 66.3% and 35.1% respectively. Slice finding 210 was 75.0% accurate. Detecting several fingers in close proximity is much more challenging when sensing at 1.6 meters.
The particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT (202) detected the correct number of fingers in 1088 trials (75.5%), more fingers than were present in 34 trials (2.4%), and fewer fingers than were present in 318 trials (22.1%). The three background modeling approaches, single-frame 204, maximum frame 206, and statistical model 208, detected the correct number of fingers in 321 (22.2%), 421 (29.2%) and 249 (17.3%) trials, more fingers in 9, 7, and 4 trials, and fewer fingers in 1110, 1012, and 1187 trials, respectively. Finally, the slice-finding 210 approach detected more fingers in 9 trials and fewer fingers in 1086 trials, correctly counting the number of fingers in 345 (24.0%) trials.
While comparison technique implementations were tuned to minimize spurious touches while nothing was touching the table, multitouch segmentation results for the particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT (202) suggest that optimizing for this criterion could have rejected too many legitimate touches, reducing touch detection rates. On the other hand, increasing touch sensitivity significantly increases noise and errant touches. For example, decreasing the “low boundary” depth threshold in the maximum distance background model tracker by a single millimeter results in an unacceptable rate of hundreds of errant touches detected on the surface every second.
Due to tracking stability issues for the competing approaches, it was not possible to test their shape tracing tasks 2102, 2104, ability. Instead, results reported for OmniTouch can be used as one point of comparison. Specifically, OmniTouch achieves a mean error of 6.3 mm (SD=3.9 mm) at a sensing distance of 40 centimeters on a flat notepad. For comparison, the particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT (202) achieves a mean error (across all 864 trials) of 2.9 mm (mean SD=2.7 mm) at a sensing distance of 160 centimeters.
In summary, particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT (202) demonstrates greatly improved touch accuracy (mean error 4.9 mm) and detection rate (>99%) over competing techniques. The particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT (202) outputs integer coordinates on the depth map, which quantizes the X/Y position to 4.4 mm intervals. Sub pixel accuracy could thus further improve the accuracy of particular the non-limiting implementation of DIRECT (202), especially in conjunction with some level of touch point smoothing, in further non-limiting aspects. In one exemplary implementation described herein, DIRECT enables the creation of a precise 2.3 m-diagonal touchscreen on an ordinary unmodified wood table, using only commercially available commodity hardware. The study examining the accuracy, reliability and precision of DIRECT compared to other methods demonstrated that the particular non-limiting implementation of DIRECT (202) indeed provides high accuracy touch tracking on unmodified surfaces.
One of ordinary skill in the art can appreciate that the various embodiments of the disclosed subject matter and related systems, devices, and/or methods described herein can be implemented in connection with any computer or other client or server device, which can be deployed as part of a communications system, a computer network, and/or in a distributed computing environment, and can be connected to any kind of data store. In this regard, the various embodiments described herein can be implemented in any computer system or environment having any number of memory or storage units, and any number of applications and processes occurring across any number of storage units or volumes, which may be used in connection with communication systems using the techniques, systems, and methods in accordance with the disclosed subject matter. The disclosed subject matter can apply to an environment with server computers and client computers deployed in a network environment or a distributed computing environment, having remote or local storage. The disclosed subject matter can also be applied to standalone computing devices, having programming language functionality, interpretation and execution capabilities for generating, receiving, storing, and/or transmitting information in connection with remote or local services and processes.
Distributed computing provides sharing of computer resources and services by communicative exchange among computing devices and systems. These resources and services can include the exchange of information, cache storage and disk storage for objects, such as files. These resources and services can also include the sharing of processing power across multiple processing units for load balancing, expansion of resources, specialization of processing, and the like. Distributed computing takes advantage of network connectivity, allowing clients to leverage their collective power to benefit the entire enterprise. In this regard, a variety of devices can have applications, objects or resources that may utilize disclosed and related systems, devices, and/or methods as described for various embodiments of the subject disclosure.
Each object 2710, 2712, etc. and computing objects or devices 2720, 2722, 2724, 2726, 2728, etc. can communicate with one or more other objects 2710, 2712, etc. and computing objects or devices 2720, 2722, 2724, 2726, 2728, etc. by way of the communications network 2740, either directly or indirectly. Even though illustrated as a single element in
There are a variety of systems, components, and network configurations that support distributed computing environments. For example, computing systems can be connected together by wired or wireless systems, by local networks or widely distributed networks. Currently, many networks are coupled to the Internet, which can provide an infrastructure for widely distributed computing and can encompass many different networks, though any network infrastructure can be used for example communications made incident to employing disclosed and related systems, devices, and/or methods as described in various embodiments.
Thus, a host of network topologies and network infrastructures, such as client/server, peer-to-peer, or hybrid architectures, can be utilized. The “client” is a member of a class or group that uses the services of another class or group to which it is not related. A client can be a process, e.g., roughly a set of instructions or tasks, that requests a service provided by another program or process. The client process utilizes the requested service without having to “know” any working details about the other program or the service itself.
In a client/server architecture, particularly a networked system, a client is usually a computer that accesses shared network resources provided by another computer, e.g., a server. In the illustration of
A server is typically a remote computer system accessible over a remote or local network, such as the Internet or wireless network infrastructures. The client process can be active in a first computer system, and the server process can be active in a second computer system, communicating with one another over a communications medium, thus providing distributed functionality and allowing multiple clients to take advantage of the information-gathering capabilities of the server. Any software objects utilized pursuant to disclosed and related systems, devices, and/or methods can be provided standalone, or distributed across multiple computing devices or objects.
In a network environment in which the communications network/bus 2740 is the Internet, for example, the servers 2710, 2712, etc. can be Web servers with which the clients 2720, 2722, 2724, 2726, 2728, etc. communicate via any of a number of known protocols, such as the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). Servers 2710, 2712, etc. may also serve as clients 2720, 2722, 2724, 2726, 2728, etc., as may be characteristic of a distributed computing environment.
As mentioned, advantageously, the techniques described herein can be applied to devices or systems where it is desirable to employ disclosed and related systems, devices, and/or methods. It should be understood, therefore, that handheld, portable and other computing devices and computing objects of all kinds are contemplated for use in connection with the various disclosed embodiments. Accordingly, the below general purpose remote computer described below in
Although not required, embodiments can partly be implemented via an operating system, for use by a developer of services for a device or object, and/or included within application software that operates to perform one or more functional aspects of the various embodiments described herein. Software can be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by one or more computers, such as client workstations, servers or other devices. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that computer systems have a variety of configurations and protocols that can be used to communicate data, and thus, no particular configuration or protocol should be considered limiting.
With reference to
Computer 2810 typically includes a variety of computer readable media and can be any available media that can be accessed by computer 2810. The system memory 2830 can include computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) and/or random access memory (RAM). By way of example, and not limitation, memory 2830 can also include an operating system, application programs, other program modules, and program data.
A user can enter commands and information into the computer 2810 through input devices 2840. A monitor or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 2822 via an interface, such as output interface 2850. In addition to a monitor, computers can also include other peripheral output devices such as speakers and a printer, which can be connected through output interface 2850.
The computer 2810 can operate in a networked or distributed environment using logical connections to one or more other remote computers, such as remote computer 2870. The remote computer 2870 can be a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, or any other remote media consumption or transmission device, and can include any or all of the elements described above relative to the computer 2810. The logical connections depicted in
As mentioned above, while example embodiments have been described in connection with various computing devices and network architectures, the underlying concepts can be applied to any network system and any computing device or system in which it is desirable to employ disclosed and related systems, devices, and/or methods.
Also, there are multiple ways to implement the same or similar functionality, e.g., an appropriate API, tool kit, driver code, operating system, control, standalone or downloadable software object, etc. which enables applications and services to use disclosed and related systems, devices, methods, and/or functionality. Thus, embodiments herein are contemplated from the standpoint of an API (or other software object), as well as from a software or hardware object that implements one or more aspects of disclosed and related systems, devices, and/or methods as described herein. Thus, various embodiments described herein can have aspects that are wholly in hardware, partly in hardware and partly in software, as well as in software.
The foregoing detailed description has set forth various embodiments of the devices and/or processes via the use of block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples. Insofar as such block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples contain one or more functions and/or operations, it will be understood by those within the art that each function and/or operation within such block diagrams, flowcharts, or examples can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software, firmware, or virtually any combination thereof. In one embodiment, several portions of the subject matter described herein may be implemented via Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), digital signal processors (DSPs), or other integrated formats. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that some aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, in whole or in part, can be equivalently implemented in integrated circuits, as one or more computer programs running on one or more computers (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more computer systems), as one or more programs running on one or more processors (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more microprocessors), as firmware, or as virtually any combination thereof, and that designing the circuitry and/or writing the code for the software and/or firmware would be well within the skill of one of skill in the art in light of this disclosure. In addition, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the mechanisms of the subject matter described herein are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that an illustrative embodiment of the subject matter described herein applies regardless of the particular type of non-transitory signal bearing medium used to actually carry out the distribution. Examples of a signal bearing medium include, but are not limited to, the following: a recordable type medium such as a floppy disk, a hard disk drive, a CD, a DVD, a digital tape, a computer memory, etc.
Those skilled in the art will recognize that it is common within the art to describe devices and/or processes in the fashion set forth herein, and thereafter use engineering practices to integrate such described devices and/or processes into systems. That is, at least a portion of the devices and/or processes described herein can be integrated into a system via a reasonable amount of experimentation. Those having skill in the art will recognize that a typical system can include one or more of a system unit housing, a video display device, a memory such as volatile and non-volatile memory, processors such as microprocessors and digital signal processors, computational entities such as operating systems, drivers, graphical user interfaces, and applications programs, one or more interaction devices, such as a touch pad or screen, and/or control systems including feedback loops and control device (e.g., feedback for sensing position and/or velocity; control devices for moving and/or adjusting parameters). A typical system can be implemented utilizing any suitable commercially available components, such as those typically found in data computing/communication and/or network computing/communication systems.
Various embodiments of the disclosed subject matter sometimes illustrate different components contained within, or connected with, other components. It is to be understood that such depicted architectures are merely example, and that, in fact, many other architectures can be implemented which achieve the same and/or equivalent functionality. In a conceptual sense, any arrangement of components to achieve the same and/or equivalent functionality is effectively “associated” such that the desired functionality is achieved. Hence, any two components herein combined to achieve a particular functionality can be seen as “associated with” each other such that the desired functionality is achieved, irrespective of architectures or intermediary components. Likewise, any two components so associated can also be viewed as being “operably connected,” “operably coupled,” “communicatively connected,” and/or “communicatively coupled,” to each other to achieve the desired functionality, and any two components capable of being so associated can also be viewed as being “operably couplable” or “communicatively couplable” to each other to achieve the desired functionality. Specific examples of operably couplable or communicatively couplable can include, but are not limited to, physically mateable and/or physically interacting components, wirelessly interactable and/or wirelessly interacting components, and/or logically interacting and/or logically interactable components.
With respect to substantially any plural and/or singular terms used herein, those having skill in the art can translate from the plural to the singular and/or from the singular to the plural as can be appropriate to the context and/or application. The various singular/plural permutations may be expressly set forth herein for the sake of clarity, without limitation.
It will be understood by those skilled in the art that, in general, terms used herein, and especially in the appended claims (e.g., bodies of the appended claims) are generally intended as “open” terms (e.g., the term “including” should be interpreted as “including but not limited to,” the term “having” should be interpreted as “having at least,” the term “includes” should be interpreted as “includes, but is not limited to,” etc.). It will be further understood by those skilled in the art that, if a specific number of an introduced claim recitation is intended, such an intent will be explicitly recited in the claim, and in the absence of such recitation no such intent is present. For example, as an aid to understanding, the following appended claims may contain usage of the introductory phrases “at least one” and “one or more” to introduce claim recitations. However, the use of such phrases should not be construed to imply that the introduction of a claim recitation by the indefinite articles “a” or “an” limit any particular claim containing such introduced claim recitation to embodiments containing only one such recitation, even when the same claim includes the introductory phrases “one or more” or “at least one” and indefinite articles such as “a” or “an” (e.g., “a” and/or “an” should be interpreted to mean “at least one” or “one or more”); the same holds true for the use of definite articles used to introduce claim recitations. In addition, even if a specific number of an introduced claim recitation is explicitly recited, those skilled in the art will recognize that such recitation should be interpreted to mean at least the recited number (e.g., the bare recitation of “two recitations,” without other modifiers, means at least two recitations, or two or more recitations). Furthermore, in those instances where a convention analogous to “at least one of A, B, and C, etc.” is used, in general such a construction is intended in the sense one having skill in the art would understand the convention (e.g., “a” system having at least one of A, B, and C″ would include, but not be limited to, systems that have A alone, B alone, C alone, A and B together, A and C together, B and C together, and/or A, B, and C together, etc.). In those instances where a convention analogous to “at least one of A, B, or C, etc.” is used, in general such a construction is intended in the sense one having skill in the art would understand the convention (e.g., “a system having at least one of A, B, or C” would include but not be limited to systems that have A alone, B alone, C alone, A and B together, A and C together, B and C together, and/or A, B, and C together, etc.). It will be further understood by those skilled in the art that virtually any disjunctive word and/or phrase presenting two or more alternative terms, whether in the description, claims, or drawings, should be understood to contemplate the possibilities of including one of the terms, either of the terms, or both terms. For example, the phrase “A or B” will be understood to include the possibilities of “A” or “B” or “A and B.”
In addition, where features or aspects of the disclosure are described in terms of Markush groups, those skilled in the art will recognize that the disclosure is also thereby described in terms of any individual member or subgroup of members of the Markush group.
As will be understood by one skilled in the art, for any and all purposes, such as in terms of providing a written description, all ranges disclosed herein also encompass any and all possible sub-ranges and combinations of sub-ranges thereof. Any listed range can be easily recognized as sufficiently describing and enabling the same range being broken down into at least equal halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, tenths, etc. As a non-limiting example, each range discussed herein can be readily broken down into a lower third, middle third and upper third, etc. As will also be understood by one skilled in the art all language such as “up to,” “at least,” and the like include the number recited and refer to ranges which can be subsequently broken down into sub-ranges as discussed above. Finally, as will be understood by one skilled in the art, a range includes each individual member. Thus, for example, a group having 1-3 cells refers to groups having 1, 2, or 3 cells. Similarly, a group having 1-5 cells refers to groups having 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 cells, and so forth.
From the foregoing, it will be noted that various embodiments of the disclosed subject matter have been described herein for purposes of illustration, and that various modifications may be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the subject disclosure. Accordingly, the various embodiments disclosed herein are not intended to be limiting, with the true scope and spirit being indicated by the appended claims.
In addition, the words “example” and “non-limiting” are used herein to mean serving as an example, instance, or illustration. For the avoidance of doubt, the subject matter disclosed herein is not limited by such examples. Moreover, any aspect or design described herein as “an example,” “an illustration,” “example” and/or “non-limiting” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects or designs, nor is it meant to preclude equivalent example structures and techniques known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Furthermore, to the extent that the terms “includes,” “has,” “contains,” and other similar words are used in either the detailed description or the claims, for the avoidance of doubt, such terms are intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term “comprising” as an open transition word without precluding any additional or other elements, as described above.
As mentioned, the various techniques described herein can be implemented in connection with hardware or software or, where appropriate, with a combination of both. As used herein, the terms “component,” “system” and the like are likewise intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution. For example, a component can be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on computer and the computer can be a component. In addition, one or more components can reside within a process and/or thread of execution and a component can be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers.
Systems described herein can be described with respect to interaction between several components. It can be understood that such systems and components can include those components or specified sub-components, some of the specified components or sub-components, or portions thereof, and/or additional components, and various permutations and combinations of the foregoing. Sub-components can also be implemented as components communicatively coupled to other components rather than included within parent components (hierarchical). Additionally, it should be noted that one or more components can be combined into a single component providing aggregate functionality or divided into several separate sub-components, and that any one or more middle component layers, such as a management layer, can be provided to communicatively couple to such sub-components in order to provide integrated functionality, as mentioned. Any components described herein can also interact with one or more other components not specifically described herein but generally known by those of skill in the art.
As mentioned, in view of the example systems described herein, methods that can be implemented in accordance with the described subject matter can be better appreciated with reference to the flowcharts of the various figures and vice versa. While for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the methods can be shown and described as a series of blocks, it is to be understood and appreciated that the claimed subject matter is not limited by the order of the blocks, as some blocks can occur in different orders and/or concurrently with other blocks from what is depicted and described herein. Where non-sequential, or branched, flow is illustrated via flowchart, it can be understood that various other branches, flow paths, and orders of the blocks, can be implemented which achieve the same or a similar result. Moreover, not all illustrated blocks can be required to implement the methods described hereinafter.
While the disclosed subject matter has been described in connection with the disclosed embodiments and the various figures, it is to be understood that other similar embodiments may be used or modifications and additions may be made to the described embodiments for performing the same function of the disclosed subject matter without deviating therefrom. Still further, multiple processing chips or multiple devices can share the performance of one or more functions described herein, and similarly, storage can be effected across a plurality of devices. In other instances, variations of process parameters (e.g., configuration, number of components, aggregation of components, process step timing and order, addition and/or deletion of process steps, addition of preprocessing and/or post-processing steps, etc.) can be made to further optimize the provided structures, devices and methods, as shown and described herein. In any event, the systems, structures and/or devices, as well as the associated methods described herein have many applications in various aspects of the disclosed subject matter, and so on. Accordingly, the subject disclosure should not be limited to any single embodiment, but rather should be construed in breadth, spirit and scope in accordance with the appended claims.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/392,443, filed on Jun. 1, 2016, and entitled HYBRID DEPTH AND INFRARED IMAGE SENSING SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ENHANCED TOUCH TRACKING ON ORDINARY SURFACES, the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/US17/35266 | 5/31/2017 | WO | 00 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62392443 | Jun 2016 | US |
