This application claims priority to China Application Serial Number 201610808613.7, filed Sep. 8, 2016, which is herein incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates to an input system and an input method. More particularly, the present invention relates to an input system and an input method adapted to providing a virtual keyboard according to touch positions and finger characteristics of a user.
Text input is usually the most efficient and common method for inputting, which is performed by striking various kinds of soft (hard) keyboards to directly enter the symbols correspondingly on the keyboards, or performed by assembling the input symbols into meaningful coding assemblies according to the encoding rule. After that, the input system extracts the text corresponding to the coding assemblies for inputting.
The above text input method is widely applied. However, many limitations exist in practical applications. For example, owing to the hardware structural characteristics of the keyboard, the keyboard usually needs to be fabricated as a plate-like structure, which in turn causes limitations in the body posture and hand position when a user performs inputting. In addition, the relative positions of keys of a keyboard are fixed so the user is required to adapt himself/herself to the keys of the keyboard. When a different keyboard is used, a large amount of time is spent in getting accustomed to the keys of the keyboard, thus not only being inconvenient but also wasting the user's time.
For the forgoing reasons, there is a need to solve the above-mentioned problems by providing an input system and an input method, which is also an objective that the industry is eager to achieve.
The summary aims to provide a brief description of the disclosure so that readers can understand the disclosure fundamentally. The summary does not describe the disclosure completely, and does not intend to specify the important/critical elements of the embodiments of the present invention or limit the scope of the present invention.
An input system is provided. The input system comprises a touch control device, a processing device, and a keyboard positioning device. The touch control device is configured to detect a plurality of touch points of a touch event. The processing device is configured to process the touch points for obtaining a relationship among the touch points and a position of each of the touch points. The keyboard positioning device is configured to provide a virtual keyboard according to the relationship among the touch points, and position the virtual keyboard on the touch control device according to the positions of the touch points.
The invention provides an input method. The input method is applied to a touch control device. The input method comprises the following steps: detecting a plurality of touch points of a touch event by a touch control device; obtaining a relationship among the touch points and a position of each of the touch points; providing a virtual keyboard according to the relationship among the touch points; and positioning the virtual keyboard on the touch control device according to the positions of the touch points.
The invention further provides an input system. The input system comprises a touch control device, a processing device, and a keyboard positioning device. The touch control device is configured to detect a plurality of touch points of a touch event. The processing device is configured to process the touch points for obtaining a relationship among the touch points and a position of each of the touch points, and obtain touch characteristics of the each of the touch points according to the relationship among the touch points. The keyboard positioning device is configured to provide a plurality of modular keyboards correspondingly according to the touch characteristics of the touch points, and position the modular keyboards on the touch control device according to the positions of the touch points.
Therefore, the present invention provides the input system and the input method that can be adapted to providing the virtual keyboard according to the touch positions and finger characteristics of the user. The user is thus allowed to freely place his/her hands on the touch control device and perform inputting through the virtual keyboard, which in turn liberates the position limitation of placement of the human hands, and provides the virtual keyboard with suitable keys according to the characteristics of the user's fingers. The input system is thus able to actively perform adjusting to conform to the finger characteristics of the user.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are by examples, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
Unless otherwise defined herein, scientific and technical terminologies employed in the present disclosure shall have the meanings that are commonly understood and used by one of ordinary skill in the art. Unless otherwise required by context, it will be understood that singular terms shall include plural forms of the same and plural terms shall include the singular. Specifically, as used herein and in the claims, the singular forms “a” and “an” include the plural reference unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
As used herein, “couple” refers to direct physical contact or electrical contact or indirect physical contact or electrical contact between two or more devices. Or it can also refer to reciprocal operations or actions between two or more devices.
In operations, the touch control device 110 is configured to detect touch points of a touch event. In one embodiment, the touch control device 110 may be but not limited to a flexible touch control device, such as intelligent wearable device. In order to facilitate the understanding of the operational features of the touch control device 110, a description is provided with reference to
After that, the touch control device 110 can transmit information of the touch points generated by the touch event to the processing device 120 through a wired or a wireless method. The processing device 120 processes the touch points, and then obtains a relationship among the touch points and positions of the touch points. For example, the processing device 120 can process at least three touch points to obtain a triangular position relationship. For instance, the processing device 120 can process a touch point A of a thumb, a touch point C of a middle finger, and a touch point O of the heel of hand to obtain a triangular relationship 200 shown in the figure, and obtain positions of the touch point A of the thumb, the touch point C of the middle finger, and the touch point O of the heel of hand.
Then, the processing device 120 transmits the relationship among the touch points to the keyboard positioning device 130. The keyboard positioning device 130 provides a virtual keyboard according to the relationship, and positions the virtual keyboard on the touch control device 110 according to the positions of the touch points. For example, the keyboard positioning device 130 can provide the virtual keyboard according to the triangular relationship 200. The triangular relationship 200 comprises physiological features of a user's palm. For example, one side OA of the triangular relationship 200 is a distance between the heel of hand and the thumb of the user. Another side OC is a distance between the heel of hand and the middle finger of the user. A third side AC is a distance between the thumb and the middle finger of the user. The keyboard positioning device 130 can thus provide a virtual keyboard suitable for a size of the user's palm and a relationship among fingers according to the physiological features of the palm comprised in the triangular relationship 200, and position the virtual keyboard at a location on the touch control device 110 correspondingly according to positions on the touch control device 110 touched by the user's fingers for the user to perform inputting.
In one embodiment, a standard keyboard is built into the keyboard positioning device 130. A size of this standard keyboard conforms to a size of a standard keyboard for a regular hand. However, the present invention is not limited in this regard. The standard keyboard is not limited to being stored in the keyboard positioning device 130, it can also be stored in some other component of the input system 100, such as being stored in a memory of the processing device 120. After the user's hand touches the touch control device 110 and the processing device 120 obtains the triangular relationship 200, the physiological features of the user's palm comprised in the triangular relationship 200 are simultaneously obtained, such as the distance between the heel of hand and the thumb OA, the distance between the heel of hand and the middle finger OC, etc. If it is assumed that the distance between the heel of hand and the thumb OA has a length of A and a length between a heel of hand and a thumb of the regular hand recorded in the standard keyboard is a, the processing device 120 can compare the length between the heel of hand and the thumb of the user A with the length between the heel of hand and the thumb of the standard keyboard a to obtain a ratio A/a between them. The keyboard positioning device 130 can be adapted to adjusting the standard keyboard according the above ratio A/a, so that the virtual keyboard is provided on the touch control device 110 for being adapted to the requirements of different finger lengths. Additionally, the processing device 120 may also use an angle θ between the two sides OA, OC of the triangular relationship 200 as a basis for being adapted to adjusting the standard keyboard so as to provide the virtual keyboard on the touch control device 110.
The positioning method according the present invention is not limited to the triangular relationship 200 presented by the heel of hand, the thumb, and the middle finger of the user, and the triangular positioning may be performed by selecting other parts of the user's palm depending on practical needs, as shown in
In one embodiment, dynamic keys of the virtual keyboard provided by the input system 100 are positioned on the touch control device 110 according to the posture of the user's palm and the finger features. When the input system 100 is used for the first time, the positioning may be performed through the operational method described in the above embodiment, and the triangular relationship formed by the palm of the user can be recorded in the input system 100. A description is provided with reference to
As shown in
In one embodiment, when performing the selection for the input method, the display device 140 may be used to display the input method selected by the virtual keyboard of the touch control device 110. Additionally, the display device 140 may also be configured to display information input by the virtual keyboard. For example, after the full keyboard input method with 26 English letters is selected, the display device 140 may be configured to display letters input through the computer input of English characters by the user. Additionally, the display device 140 may be but is not limited to a mobile phone screen, a computer screen, a TV screen, a projection screen, etc. After the information input by the virtual keyboard of the touch control device 110 is processed by the processing device 120, the information is displayed on the display device 140. The display device 140 and the processing device 120 may be connected through a wired or a wireless method, such as being connected through various signal wires, Wifi, Bluetooth, or mobile communication protocol(s).
A description is provided with reference to
Then, the keyboard positioning device 130 provides a plurality of modular keyboards correspondingly according to the touch characteristics of the touch points, and positions the modular keyboards on the touch control device 110 according to the positions of the touch points. For example, the keyboard positioning device 130 provides a thumb keyboard 710 according to the touch characteristics that the touch point A corresponds to the thumb, the keyboard positioning device 130 provides an index finger keyboard 720 according to the touch characteristics that the touch point B corresponds to the index finger, and so forth. After that, the keyboard positioning device 130 positions the thumb keyboard 710 on the touch control device 110 according to a position of the touch point A, positions the index finger keyboard 720 on the touch control device 110 according to a position of the touch point B, and so forth. The thumb keyboard 710, the index finger keyboard 720, a middle finger keyboard 730, a ring finger keyboard 740, and a little finger keyboard 750 are modular keyboards designed according to features of human fingers so as to meet ergonomic requirements. For example, based on activity characteristics of the different fingers, the index finger keyboard 720 for the index finger is designed as six keys arranged in two columns because the index finger generally moves more flexibly and can operate within a larger range. The activity characteristics of the other fingers are lower. Hence, the keyboards for the other fingers are designed as three keys arranged in one column.
In addition, based on differences between moving directions of the different fingers, each of the finger keyboards may be designed as a lateral keyboard or a longitudinal keyboard. For example, the moving direction of the thumb is lateral so the keyboard for the thumb is designed as a lateral keyboard. The moving directions of the other fingers are longitudinal so the keyboards for the other fingers are designed as longitudinal keyboards. In greater detail, based on ergonomics, the moving direction of the thumb is lateral but at an inclination angle to a horizontal line, the keyboard for the thumb is thus designed as a lateral but slightly inclined keyboard. The moving directions of the index finger and the middle finger are approximately longitudinal, the keyboards for the index finger and the middle finger are thus designed as longitudinal keyboards accordingly. Each of the moving directions of the ring finger and the little finger is longitudinal but at an inclination angle to a vertical line, the keyboards for the middle finger and the little finger are thus designed as longitudinal but slightly inclined keyboards. The keys and directions of the modular keyboards may be designed depending on practical needs to further meet ergonomic requirements.
In order to facilitate the understanding of the input method 800 according to the embodiment of the present invention, a description is provided with reference to
Similarly, a description is provided with reference to
A description is provided with reference to
In order to facilitate the understanding of the input method 900 according to the embodiment of the present invention, a description is provided with reference to
Similarly, a description is provided with reference to
A description is provided with reference to
Then, it is determined whether or not the user uses the input system 100 for the first time (step 1030). The input system 100 searches whether or not a usable triangular position relationship is available. If not, the user has not used the input system 100 before so there is no triangular position relationship of features of the user's palm. At this time, the features of the user's palm are detected through the input system 100 and a virtual keyboard is provided correspondingly (step 1040). After that, the user can select an input method (step 1050). After performing step 1040 and step 1050, the input system 100 can store information of the user to allow the user to directly pull up the corresponding virtual keyboard that matches the preset input method when the user uses the input system 100 again. It is thus very convenient for the user.
If the input system 100 retrieves the usable triangular position relationship, then the user has used the input system 100 before. At this time, it is only necessary to provide the virtual keyboard according to preset keys and some other preset selection(s) by the user (step 1060), and turn on an input function to allow the user to input text (step 1070). In addition, during the process of inputting text, if the user puts his/her palm at some other position due to a change in posture or some other factor, the input system 100 can immediately detect and change the input position correspondingly (step 1080).
It is therefore understood from the embodiments of the present invention that the present invention has the following advantages. The present invention provides the input system and the input method that can be adapted to providing the virtual keyboard according to the touch positions and finger characteristics of the user. The user is thus allowed to freely place his/her hands on the touch control device and perform inputting through the virtual keyboard, which in turn liberates the position limitation of placement of the human hands, and provides the virtual keyboard with suitable keys according to the characteristics of the user's fingers. The input system is thus able to actively perform adjusting to conform to the finger characteristics of the user.
Although the present invention has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain embodiments thereof, other embodiments are possible. Therefore, the spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the embodiments contained herein.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present invention cover modifications and variations of this invention provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201610808613.7 | Sep 2016 | CN | national |