Patent Application
20110096034
This application claims the priority benefits of Taiwan application serial no. 98135962, filed on Oct. 23, 2009, Taiwan application serial no. 98146653, filed on Dec. 31, 2009, Taiwan application serial no. 99102093, filed on Jan. 26, 2010 and Taiwan application serial no. 99116100, filed on May 20, 2010. The entirety of each of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of this specification.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a touch-sensing display. Particularly, the invention relates to an optical touch-sensing display.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, with continuous progress of image display technique, since a touch screen has an advantage of conducting input directly through a touch operation, it has become a commonly used display device in the market, and is widely applied in various electronic produces such as an automatic teller machine, a terminal of a sales point, a tourist guide system, or an industrial control system, etc. A touch interface can be implemented by multiple approaches according to a conventional technique. For example, in some conventional liquid crystal displays (LCDs), a touch film can be attached on a LCD panel thereof to achieve a capacitive or a resistive touch effect.
There is another technique to achieve the touch effect by using optical sensors. The optical sensors sense a finger or a stylus on the screen, and then transmit the signals into a supplemented controller to being processed. This way will cause the increasing of cost because of setting a supplemented device including the controller on the screen or a supplemented operating platform connected to the screen.
The invention is directed to an optical touch-sensing display, in which light guides are used to produce an optical environment with a good quality.
The invention is directed to an optical touch-sensing display, in which a universal serial bus (USB) is used to transmit a coordinate signal.
The invention is directed to an optical touch module, which has integrated touch units.
The invention is directed to an optical touch-sensing display, in which touch units and a transmission interface are integrated to achieve a better touch performance.
An embodiment of the invention provides an optical touch-sensing display including a display device, at least three light guides, at least two optical touch-sensing devices, and a transmission interface electrically connected to the optical touch-sensing devices. The display device has a display surface and a sensing space upon the display surface. The light guides are disposed at periphery of the display surface, and each of the light guides has two light incident surfaces opposite to each other and a light-emitting surface there between. The optical touch-sensing devices disposed on the display device and located outside of the display surface are electrically connected to each other. Each of the optical touch-sensing devices includes a sensing module and at least one light source. The light source emits light to the sensing space passing through the light incident surface and light-emitting surface of the light guide. When at least one object enters the sensing space, each of the sensing modules senses a light variation induced by the object in the sensing space to generate a first signal, and the first signals are transmitted to one of the sensing modules and are processed to a second signal, and then the second signal is output from the optical touch-sensing device through the transmission interface.
An embodiment of the invention provides an optical touch-sensing display including a display device, at least three sensing modules, four light guides, a plurality of light sources and a universal serial bus (USB). The display device has a display surface and a sensing space upon the display surface, wherein the display surface has a pair of long sides opposite to each other and a pair of short sides opposite to each other. The sensing modules disposed at adjacent corners of the display surface are electrically connected to each other. The light guides are respectively disposed at the long sides and the short sides. Each of the light guides has two light incident surfaces opposite to each other and a light-emitting surface there between, wherein the light-emitting surface faces to the sensing space. Each of the light sources emits light to the sensing space passing through the light incident surface and the light-emitting surface of the light guide. The USB is electrically connected to the sensing modules. When at least one object enters the sensing space, each of the sensing modules senses a light variation induced by the object in the sensing space to generate a first signal, and the first signals are transmitted to one of the sensing modules and are processed to a second signal, and then the second signal is output from the sensing module through the USB.
An embodiment of the invention provides an optical touch-sensing display including a display device, at least three light guides, at least two sensors, at least two light sources and a transmission interface. The display device has a display surface and a sensing space upon the display surface. The light guides are disposed at periphery of the sensing space. Each of the light guides has two ends opposite to each other, a light incident surface located at one end, and a light-emitting surface located between the two ends and facing to the sensing space. The sensors electrically connected to each other are respectively disposed at two adjacent corners of the display surface. Each of the light sources emits light to the sensing space passing through the light incident surface and the light-emitting surface of the light guide. The transmission interface is electrically connected to the sensors. Each of the sensors captures an image of at least one object in the sensing space to generate a signal, and then the signal are transmitted to an operating platform through the transmission interface.
An embodiment of the invention provides an optical touch module adapted to a display device to enable a touch function of the display device. The display device has a display surface and a sensing space upon the display surface. The optical touch module includes a first optical touch-sensing device, a second optical touch-sensing device, an interface circuit and a transmission interface. The first optical touch-sensing device is disposed on the display device and located at a corner of the display surface, and the second optical touch-sensing device is disposed on the display device and located at another corner of the display surface. The first optical touch-sensing device and the second optical touch-sensing device are electrically connected via the interface circuit. The transmission interface is electrically connected to at least one of the first optical touch-sensing device and the second optical touch-sensing device. When at least one object enters the sensing space, the first optical touch-sensing device and the second optical touch-sensing device sense the object and respectively generate a one-dimensional coordinate signal. The one-dimensional coordinate signals are transmitted to one of the first optical touch-sensing device and the second optical touch-sensing device, and are processed to a two-dimensional coordinate signal. Then the two-dimensional coordinate signal is output from the optical touch module through the transmission interface.
An embodiment of the invention provides an optical touch-sensing display including a display device, a first optical touch-sensing device, at least one second optical touch-sensing device and a transmission interface. The display device has a display surface and a sensing space upon the display surface. The first optical touch-sensing device includes a first system chipset and a storage device. The second optical touch-sensing device includes a second system chipset electrically connected to the first system chipset. The transmission interface is electrically connected to the first optical touch-sensing device. When at least one object enters the sensing space, the first optical touch-sensing device and the second optical touch-sensing device sense the object and respectively generate a one-dimensional coordinate signal. The one-dimensional coordinate signals are transmitted to the storage device, and are processed to a two-dimensional coordinate signal by the first system chipset, and then the two-dimensional coordinate signal is output from the first optical touch-sensing device through the transmission interface.
An embodiment of the invention provides an optical touch-sensing display including a display device, a webcam and at least two optical touch-sensing devices. The display device has a display surface and a sensing space upon the display surface. The webcam is disposed on the display device and located outside of the display surface, and includes a first storage device and a USB electrically connected to the first storage device. The optical touch-sensing devices are disposed on the display device and located outside of the display surface and are electrically connected to the webcam. Each of the optical touch-sensing devices includes a system chipset and a second storage device electrically connected to the system chipset. When at least one object enters the sensing space, the optical touch-sensing devices sense the object and respectively generate a first signal. The first signals are transmitted to one of the first storage device and the second storage devices, and are processed to a second signal, and then the second signal is output from the webcam through the USB.
According to the above descriptions, in the optical touch-sensing display of the invention, the light guides are disposed at peripheral of the display surface, so that the light emitted by the light sources may have an good light-emitting quality when being transmitted to the sensing space through the light guides, so that an optical environment of the sensing space and a touch performance of the optical touch-sensing display are improved.
Moreover, in the optical touch-sensing display of the invention, by using the sensing modules electrically connected to each other and the USB connected thereto, the first signals generated by the sensing modules are transmitted to one of the sensing modules and are processed to the second signal, and then the second signal is output from the sensing module through the USB. In this way, a data transmission amount is reduced due to a pre-computation, so that a data transmission time is shortened, and the optical touch-sensing device become more efficient.
Moreover, the optical touch module in the optical touch-sensing display is divided into a plurality of optical touch-sensing devices, and the one-dimensional coordinate signals generated by the optical touch-sensing devices are transmitted to one of the optical touch-sensing device having the storage device and are processed to a two-dimensional coordinate signal, and then the two-dimensional coordinate signal is output from the optical touch module through the transmission interface. In this way, the related system chipsets in the optical touch-sensing devices are integrated, so as to improve operating efficiencies of the optical touch module and the optical touch-sensing display.
In order to make the aforementioned and other features and advantages of the invention comprehensible, several exemplary embodiments accompanied with figures are described in detail below.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
In
Moreover, in the present embodiment, the light source 220 is, for example, a light source of an invisible light such as infrared, etc. The light produced by the light sources 220 is transmitted to the sensing space P1 through the light guides 300, and based on such planar light source with a uniform brightness, the light transmitted to the sensing space P1 can form a light field with a uniform brightness in the sensing space P1.
Moreover, the optical touch-sensing display 10 of the present embodiment may also include a plurality of reflection sheets or reflection films, which can be used to surround the light guide 300 while exposing the light-emitting surface F2 of the light guide 300. In this way, the light entering the light guide 300 through the light incident surface F1 can be reflected to the light-emitting surface F2 by the reflection sheet or the reflection film, so as to increase a intensity of the light at the light-emitting surface F2. Moreover, a reflection film can also be plated on a surface of the light guide 300 other than the light incident surface and the light-emitting surface, or a microstructure (which is, for example, notches formed on the surface of the light guide that are used for increasing a light-emitting area or a light scattering area) is formed on the light guide 300, so as to increase the intensity of the light at the light-emitting surface to achieve a same effect as that described above.
In the present embodiment, each of the optical touch-sensing device 200 includes two light sources 220, though the invention is not limited thereto, and in other embodiments that are not illustrated, the optical touch-sensing device may not include the light source, or may include a plurality of the light sources, which can be varied according to an actual design requirement of the optical touch-sensing display.
In detail, the light guides 300 can be designed according to a profile of the display device 100. For example, in the display device 100 of the present embodiment, the quadrilateral display surface S1 has a pair of long sides L1 opposite to each other and a pair of short sides L2 opposite to each other. Each of the long sides L1 is located between the pair of short sides L2, and each of the short sides L2 is located between the pair of long sides L1, so that the light guides 300 of the present embodiment include first units 310 extended along the long sides L1 and second units 320 extended along the short sides L2, wherein a length of the first unit 310 is greater than that of the second unit 320.
On the other hand, the optical touch-sensing device 200 further includes conductive wires 230, wherein the light sources 220 and the sensing module 210 are electrically connected via the conductive wires 230, so that the light sources 220 and the sensing module 210 may have a same power source, and the optical touch-sensing device 200 can simultaneously control the light sources 220 and the sensing module 210 for turning on/off in collaboration, so as to achieve the effect of touch-sensing. It's not limited of the number of the light source by the present embodiment, which can be varied with a profile of the light guide 300, a number and positions of the light guides 300 disposed on the display surface S1. For example, referring to
Referring to
In the present embodiment, a system on chip (SoC) technique can be used to integrate the sensor 214 and the signal processor 216 into a single chip mounted on the circuit board 212 (for example, the mounting technology is the same as described above), wherein a sensing surface of the sensor 214 faces to the sensing space P1. Moreover, in another embodiment that is not illustrated, the sensor 214 and the signal processor 216 can also be fabricated into a single system in package (SiP) or a single SoC, so as to increase a signal processing speed. Here, an integration method of the sensor 214 and the signal processor 216 is not limited by the invention.
Moreover, in other embodiments that are not illustrated, the circuit board can be a flexible circuit board, and based on a bendable feature thereof, the sensor, the signal processor and the light sources can all be mounted on the flexible circuit board (for example, the mounting technology is the same as described above), so as to achieve a same effect as that described in the above embodiment.
In the present embodiment, the optical touch-sensing devices 200 are connected to each other via a serial peripheral interface (SPI) circuit 240, so as to synchronize serial data of the optical touch-sensing devices 200. When the at least one object 20 enters the sensing space P1, the sensor 214 senses light reflected by the object 20, and the object 20 is imaged on the sensor 214 as a bright dot or a dark dot. Now, the sensor 214 generates the sensing signal and transmits it to the signal processor 216. The signal processor 216 determines the position of the object 20 according to the light variation sensed by the corresponding sensor 214, and generates a one-dimensional coordinate signal. Here, the one-dimensional coordinate signal may represent an incident angle of the light reflected by the object 20 when the light enters the sensor 214.
In this way, the one-dimensional coordinate signals respectively generated by the three optical touch-sensing devices 200 are transmitted into the signal processor 216 of one of the sensing modules 210 through the SPI circuit 240, and a compiler program stored in the sensing module 210 is used to determine the position of the object 20 relative to the display surface S1 according to the one-dimensional coordinate signals. For example, the compiler program stored in the sensing module 210 calculates the position of the object 20 relative to the display surface S1 according to two incident angles of the light incident to the sensors 214, and accordingly generates a two-dimensional coordinate signal. Then, the two-dimensional coordinate signal is transmitted to an operating platform 30 through the transmission interface 400 (which is a USB in the present embodiment). In this way, the platform 30 can determine the position of the object 20 relative to an image displayed by the display surface S1, so as to implement the function of touch-sensing.
The one-dimensional coordinate signals are not limited to be collected into a specific optical touch-sensing device 200. In the present embodiment, the three optical touch-sensing devices 200 can be defined in relative relations of master and slave.
In addition,
Similarly, a type of the storage devices 650C in the optical touch-sensing devices 600C is not limited by the embodiment. Similar to the embodiment of
It should be noticed that the webcam 500 includes a signal processor 516, a storage device 550 and the transmission interface 400 electrically connected to each other. When the object 20 enters the sensing space P1, the one-dimensional coordinate signals generated by the optical touch-sensing devices 200 are collected into the storage device 550 of the webcam 500 through the SPI circuit 240, and are processed to a two-dimensional coordinate signal by the signal processor 516, and then the two-dimensional coordinate signal is output to the operating platform 30 through the transmission interface 400. In other words, the webcam 500 of the present embodiment has a function similar to the optical touch-sensing device 600A of the embodiment of
In the present embodiment, the operating platform 30 is, for example, a computer host. However, in other embodiments, the operating platform can also be a mobile phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a digital camera or other suitable electronic devices.
Moreover, in another embodiment that is not illustrated, the sensor is, for example, a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS), which is used for capturing an image of the object to generate a signal, and transmitting the signal to an operating platform through a transmission interface, which can also achieve an effect similar to that of the aforementioned embodiments.
In this way, the optical touch-sensing display 10 can transmit the two-dimensional signal to the platform 30 through the transmission interface 400. Therefore it can avoid using conventional signal processor additionally and improve the performance of optical touch-sensing.
In summary, in the optical touch-sensing display of the invention, the light guides are disposed at peripheral of the display surface, so that the light emitted by the light sources may have a good light-emitting quality in the sensing space. Moreover, the one-dimensional coordinate signals generated by the sensing modules are first transmitted to one of the sensing modules for coordinate processing, and then the processed coordinate signal is output from the optical touch-sensing device through the USB. In this way, utilization of additional electronic devices is avoided so as to save a signal transmission time, and the optical touch-sensing display may have higher optical touch efficiency.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 98135962 | Oct 2009 | TW | national |
| 98146653 | Dec 2009 | TW | national |
| 99102093 | Jan 2010 | TW | national |
| 99116100 | May 2010 | TW | national |
