The disclosure relates to touch systems and touch methods, and more particularly to an optical touch system, an optical touch device and a touch method for the optical touch system.
With the development of display technology, display devices with touch function play more and more important roles in the field of human machine interface technology. In present, some display device manufacturers assemble an on-cell touch module on a display device to endow the display device with touch function. However, such assembling method usually results that the whole display device becomes thicker and heavier and thus does not satisfy the trend of slim and light for display device.
Due to touch modules with different technical architectures causing technology bottlenecks in manufacturing process, it is inconvenient for the display device manufacturers to select a proper type of touch modules. Taking a type of touch module with a projective capacitive architecture as an example, the manufacturing yield of the projective capacitive touch module to be employed in the display device having a size more than 10 inches is low all the time, and the price of the touch module with the projective capacitive architecture accordingly keeps high. For another type of touch module with a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor (CMOS) optical architecture, due to a high precision being required in assembling of the touch module and the display device, it is liable to cause the capacity of the display device assembled with the touch module too low. In addition, for other types of touch modules, their whole performances are usually inferior to the above two types of touch modules.
For the display device manufacturers, if they do not want to employ the on-cell touch module, they can use the in-cell touch technology to facilitate the display devices to directly realize the touch function instead. However, the in-cell touch technology usually requires changing the manufacturing process or hardware architectures of the display devices so as to realize the touch function for the display devices. Therefore, the manufacturing cost of the display devices would be sharply increased.
Accordingly, an optical touch system in accordance with an embodiment of the disclosure includes a display unit, a touch operation unit, and a data processing unit. The display unit is configured (i.e., structured and arranged) to display at least a general image frame and display a specific pattern frame alternately with the at least a general image frame. The touch operation unit is configured to scan a part of the specific pattern frame and capture image data corresponding to the scanned part of the specific pattern frame. The data processing unit is configured to receive the image data captured by the touch operation unit and translate the image data into a coordinate position.
An optical touch device in accordance with another embodiment of the disclosure includes a display unit configured to display at least a general image frame and display a specific pattern frame alternately with the at least a general image frame. Moreover, the specific pattern frame includes multiple patterns and serves as a basis of positioning a cursor.
An optical touch method in accordance with still another embodiment of the disclosure includes steps of: displaying at least a general image frame; displaying a specific pattern frame alternately with the at least a general image frame; scanning a part of the specific pattern frame, simultaneously with displaying the specific pattern frame, to obtain image data corresponding to the scanned part of the specific pattern frame; and translating the image data into a coordinate position.
The above embodiments of the disclosure will become more readily apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art after reviewing the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.
The disclosure will now be described more specifically with reference to the following embodiments. It is to be noted that the following descriptions of embodiments are presented herein for purpose of illustration and description only. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to be limited to the precise form disclosed.
Referring to
The display unit 13 has a display function, and is configured to display general image frames of moving/still images or graphics, or display at least a general image frame according to a received image signal. The display unit 13 further is configured to display a specific pattern frame alternately with the general image frames. The specific pattern frame may be formed by arranging a plurality of patterns with different shapes from one another. The display unit 13 may be, but not limited to, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display device, a liquid crystal display (LCD) device, a plasma display device, or the like.
The display unit 13 displays the general image frames with a first frame refresh rate and displays the specific pattern frame with a second frame refresh rate alternately with the general image frames, so that the specific pattern frame is displayed among the displays of the general image frames. The second frame refresh rate is preferably lower than the first frame refresh rate. Furthermore, the first frame refresh rate for example is an integer multiple of the second frame refresh rate.
The data processing unit 15 is electrically connected to the display unit 13. The data processing unit 15 can receive image data or signals outputted from the transmission unit 19, or provide signals to the touch operation unit 30 via the transmission unit 19. The data processing unit 15 can perform operations of analysis and/or comparison to the image data. Furthermore, the data processing unit 15 can translate the image data into a coordinate position. In detailed, the data processing unit 15 can translate the image data in real-time according to an interpretation/translation algorithm or perform operations of comparison and analysis to the image data on the assist of the database 17, so as to obtain the coordinate position corresponding to the image data.
Subsequently, the data processing unit 15 informs the display unit 13 to display and position a cursor on the at least a general image frame according to the translated coordinate position. The data processing unit 15 then can obtain information of a clicked area caused by the touch operation unit 30 based on the translated coordinate position, perform a relevant software process according to the obtained information and then feedback a result on the general image frame displayed on the display unit 13, to thereby achieve a touch operation. Briefly speaking, the translated coordinate position can be used as a basis of determining whether to trigger the execution of application program to perform a following touch operation.
The data processing unit 15 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a micro control unit (MCU), a digital signal processor (DSP), or composed of single chip with functional circuits such as data output/input unit, storage unit, arithmetic logic unit, signal converting unit, timing unit and/or counting unit, and etc.
The database 17 is electrically connected to the data processing unit 15. The database 17 stores the specific pattern frame and a look up table (LUT) associated with coordinate positions corresponding to different parts of the specific pattern frame. The LUT provides data to the data processing unit 15 for performing operations. Furthermore, the LUT can provide the coordinate position corresponding to image data translated by the data processing unit 15. The content of the LUT can be amended, updated or canceled by user. In addition, the database 17 also can store the image data.
The database 17 can be stored in a storage unit. The storage unit may be, for example, a nonvolatile memory, a volatile memory, or a combination of the nonvolatile memory and the volatile memory. The nonvolatile memory may be, but not limited to, a read only memory (ROM), a programmable read only memory (PROM), an electrically alterable read only memory (EAROM), an erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM), an electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, and the like. The volatile memory may be, but not limited to, a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), an enhanced dynamic random access memory (EDRAM), a static random access memory (SRAM), or the like. In other embodiment, the database 17 can be omitted, and correspondingly the data processing unit 15 translates the image data into the coordinate position in real-time manner.
The transmission unit 19 is electrically connected to the data processing unit 15. The transmission unit 19 can receive the image data outputted from the touch operation unit 30, or provide signals to the touch operation unit 30. The transmission unit 19 can convert data or signals into a transmission format matched with a certain communication protocol. The transmission unit 19 may transmit data, signals and/or power by wired transmission 191 or wireless transmission 193. The wired transmission 191 may be, but not limited to, a universal serial bus (USB), RS-232, IEEE 1394 or the like. The wireless transmission 193 may be, but not limited to, Bluetooth, a wireless network or the like.
The touch operation unit 30 has a function like a touch stylus. The touch operation unit 30 may include an optical imaging device with data and/or image scanning function, a data memory, a data processor, and so on. The optical imaging device may be, for example, a charge coupled device (CCD), a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuit, a charge injection device (CID), or a combination thereof.
The touch operation unit 30 can scan a part of the specific pattern frame displayed on the display unit 13. Then, the touch operation unit 30 captures and transmits image data corresponding to the scanned part of the specific pattern frame. Preferably, the touch operation unit 30 may be portable and have a chargeable function. In other embodiment, the data processing unit 15 and the database 17 can be disposed in or integrally formed with the touch operation unit 30.
It should be noted that, referring to
The first, second and third touch operation units 33, 35, 37 respectively scan different parts of the specific pattern frame displayed on the display unit 13, capture image data corresponding to the respective scanned parts of the specific pattern frame and transmit the respective captured image data to the data processing unit 15 via the wireless transmission 195. Moreover, the first, second and third touch operation units 33, 35, 37 may transmit the respective image data to the data processing unit 15 by serial transmission manner or parallel transmission manner, and use respective predefined data encapsulating formats to allow the data processing unit 15 to distinguish and identify the image data captured by the respective first, second and third touch operation units 33, 35, 37.
The data processing unit 15 then performs operations such as analyzing and/or comparing the image data to obtain coordinate positions. The data processing unit 15 will informs the display unit 13 to display and position a cursor at three positions on at least a general image frame displayed on the display unit 13 according to the coordinate positions. The data processing unit 15 can obtain information of clicked areas respectively caused by the first, second and third touch operation units 33, 35, 37 based on the coordinate positions, performs relevant software process according to the obtained information and then feedback a result on the general image frame displayed on the display unit 13, to thereby achieve a multi-touch operation.
It should be noted that, a display timing of the specific pattern frame is configured to be synchronized with a scan timing of the touch operation unit 30. For example, when the display unit 13 displays the specific pattern frame, the touch operation unit 30 is set to start for scanning. When the display unit 13 does not display the specific pattern frame, the touch operation unit 30 is set to be stopped scanning.
Referring to
The first and second general image frames 131, 135 are displayed on the display unit 13 with a first frame refresh rate 20. The specific pattern frame 133 is displayed on the display unit 13 with a second frame refresh rate 23. It should be noted that, the second frame refresh rate 23 is lower than the first frame refresh rate 20. In addition, the first frame refresh rate 20 is preferably more than 120 Hz for keeping the display quality of 60 Hz.
In another exemplary embodiment, the general image frames are displayed on the display unit 13 with a third frame refresh rate 25, and the specific pattern frame 133 is displayed on the display unit 13 with a fourth frame refresh rate 27 alternately with the display of the general image frames. That is, for example, after three general image frames are continuously displayed, one specific pattern frame 133 is displayed. In addition, the second frame refresh rate 23 or the fourth frame refresh rate 27 influences the sensitivity of touch operation. That is, the higher the second frame refresh rate 23 or the fourth frame refresh rate 27 is, the better the sensitivity of touch operation is.
Referring to
In an embodiment, in order to achieve both purpose of good image quality and sufficient time for scanning the specific pattern frame, the display unit 13 being a non-emissive display device (e.g., LCD device) will be taken as an example as below. The display unit 13 is configured with a side-type or direct-type backlight source (not shown) which can emit visible light and invisible light in an alternate mode. As illustrated in
Moreover, the alternately displayed general image frame and specific pattern frame are synchronized with the alternately emitted visible light and invisible light respectively. In other words, the visible light is provided for illumination during the display of the general image frames 131, 135, and the invisible light is provided for illumination during the display of the specific pattern frame 133. Correspondingly, the optical imaging device included in any one of the touch operation units 30, 33, 35, 37 is an invisible light imaging device for scanning the patterns in the specific pattern frame 133 displayed by invisible light.
Regarding the arrangement of patterns in the specific pattern frame, for example, if the display unit 13 has a size of 21.5 inches, the length thereof is about 476.64 mm and the width is about 268.11 mm. When single one pattern 133a has a size of 5×5 pixels and an interval between two adjacent patterns 133a is 1.24 mm, the specific pattern frame 133 can be divided into 82944 parts. When single one pattern 133a has a size of 12×12 pixels and the interval between two adjacent patterns 133a is 2.98 mm, the specific pattern frame 133 can be divided into 14400 parts. In addition, when single one pattern 133a has a size of 20×20 pixels and the interval between two adjacent patterns 133a is 4.97 mm, the specific pattern frame 133 can be divided into 5184 parts, and so forth.
In the following, process of pattern 133a scanning and translating will be described in detail, but it is not to limit the disclosure. Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
Subsequently, in step S503, the display unit 13 displays a specific pattern frame with a second frame refresh rate alternately with the at least a general image frame. The second frame refresh rate is lower than the first frame refresh rate. Moreover, the first frame refresh rate is an integer multiple of the second frame refresh rate. The specific pattern frame is formed by a plurality of patterns (or symbols) with different shapes from one another arranged in a certain manner (e.g., in matrix manner). In an embodiment, the specific pattern frame is illuminated with invisible light, e.g., near-infrared light, far-infrared light or UV (ultraviolet) light.
In step S505, when the display unit 13 displays the specific pattern frame, the touch operation unit 30 simultaneously scans the specific pattern frame and capture image data corresponding to a scanned part of the specific pattern frame. In detailed, during the touch operation unit 30 simultaneously scans the specific pattern frame, if the scanned area is located among multiple patterns with different shapes, the data processing unit 15 uses an interpolation algorithm to compare and calculate the coordinate position corresponding to the image data. In an exemplary embodiment, the touch operation unit 30 can obtain the image data of the scanned area via a successive capturing method.
In step S507, the data processing unit 15 acquires the image data through the transmission unit 19 and translates the received image data into a coordinate position via searching the look up table. In other embodiment, the number of the touch operation unit 30 can be increased to be multiple (as illustrated in
Next, in step S509, the data processing unit 15 informs the display unit 13 to display and position a cursor according to the coordinate position, allowing the user to determine whether the current touch process can normally run. In other embodiment, the data processing unit 15 can obtain information of a clicked area caused by the touch operation unit 30 based on the coordinate position, perform a relevant software process according to the obtained information and then feedback the result on a general image frame displayed on the display unit 13, to thereby achieve a touch operation.
In summary, the optical touch system, the optical touch device, and the touch method of the disclosure insert the specific pattern frame between the displays of general image frames and use the touch operation unit with image sensing function to obtain the coordinate position of the clicked area caused by the user via the touch operation unit and then perform a relevant software process. As a result, the touch function can be achieved.
Because without changing the manufacturing process and hardware architecture of display device, the manufacturing yield and capacity of display device are not affected, and the display device would be given with touch function at low cost. Furthermore, the optical touch system, the optical touch device and the touch method of the disclosure can be used in various types of electronic information processing devices (such as televisions, notebooks, tablet computers, desktop computers, smart phones, or the like) with any sized display device, and thus have high compatibility.
While the disclosure has been described in terms of what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the disclosure needs not be limited to the disclosed embodiment. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims which are to be accorded with the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar structures.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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100135923 | Oct 2011 | TW | national |