Patent Application
20130009997
The present disclosure relates generally to a manner by which to facilitate viewing of full-motion video on a portable wireless device such as a so-called “tablet” personal computer or PC. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus, and an associated method, by which full-motion video obtained from a variety of sources can be enlarged or reduced, i.e., “zoomed-in” or “zoomed-out,” using a tactile or input gesture to a touch-sensitive display screen.
Recent years have witnessed the development and deployment of a wide range of electronic devices and systems that provide many new functions and services. Advancements in communication technologies for instance, have permitted the development and deployment of a wide array of communication devices, equipment, and communication infrastructures. Their development, deployment, and popular use have changed the lives and daily habits of many.
Cellular telephone and other wireless communication systems have been developed and deployed and have achieved significant levels of usage. Increasing technological capabilities along with decreasing equipment and operational costs have permitted, by way of such wireless communication systems, increased communication capabilities to be provided at lowered costs.
Early-generation, wireless communication systems generally provided for voice communications and limited data communications. Successor-generation communication systems have provided increasingly data-intensive communication capabilities and services. New-generation communication system, for instance, provide for the communication of large data files at high through-put rates by their attachment to data messages.
Wireless communications are typically effectuated through use of portable wireless devices, which are sometimes referred to as mobile stations. The wireless devices are typically of small dimensions, thereby to increase the likelihood that the device shall be hand-carried and available for use whenever needed as long as the wireless devices positioned within an area encompassed by a network of the cellular, or analogous, communication system. A wireless device includes transceiver circuitry to provide for radio communication, both to receive information and to send information.
Some wireless devices are now provided with additional functionality. Some of the additional functionality provided to a wireless device is communication-related while other functionality is related to other technologies. When so-configured, the wireless device forms a multi-functional device, having multiple functionalities.
The recordation, storage and playback of full-motion video is one functionality now provided to some wireless devices, which include tablet computers equipped with radio frequency transmitters and receivers. Because of the small dimensions of typical wireless devices, and the regular carriage of such devices by users, a wireless device having video playback functionality is desirable to many users. A program, once recorded, can be saved, for example, at a storage element of the wireless device and/or can be viewed on the device or perhaps transferred elsewhere because the television content is defined or kept as a file, which is generally considered to be a named or identified collection of information, such as a set of data bits or bytes used by a program. And, since the recorded image is kept as a file, the file can be appended to a data message and sent elsewhere. The data file forming the image or images is also storable at the wireless device, available subsequently to be viewed at the wireless device.
Various methodologies have been developed by which to facilitate the viewing of video programming or content. A method and apparatus by which video content can be manipulated, i.e., zoomed in and zoomed-out, in order to provide the appearance of enlarging or decreasing the size of objects in a video, would be an improvement over the prior art. It is in light of this background information related to television programming information recording that the significant improvements of the present invention have evolved.
Gestures are considered herein to be one or movements of one or more figures across the surface of the display screen 102, while the one or more fingers make contact with the surface of the display screen. As used herein, a gesture can also include a movement of a pen or stylus against the surface of the display screen 102. Using gestures it is thus possible to duplicate the functionality of a conventional prior art mouse and keyboard. Gestures enable a user to scroll, select, open a program, close a program, and as described more fully below “zoom in” and “zoom out” of images and video displayed on the screen 102.
The table 100 is able to receive and send data from and to external devices. In
The display screen 102 is a multi-touch, capacitive screen. In one embodiment, the display screen 102 has a full or “native” resolution of 1024×600 picture elements or “pixels.” Stated another way, the display screen has 1024 individually addressable picture elements or pixels in the horizontal or “X” direction, in each of six hundred rows that are arranged above each other the vertical or “Y” direction. The screen 102 is thus capable of displaying, without scaling or compression, digital images having of 1024×600 image elements. Those of ordinary skill in the art recognize that digital images having different numbers of image elements in either the horizontal direction or the vertical require image processing to either crop or delete excess image elements or add image elements, if a full screen image on the display screen 102 is desired.
The wireless network 202 also provides connectivity to various communication endpoints. Two communication endpoints are exemplified in
Devices that are compatible with the network 202 are able to at least receive radio frequency signals carrying data representing previously-captured video images. As used herein, the term “previously captured image” and “previously-captured video” means an image or video respectively, either captured by a camera, or generated by a graphics device such as a computer, not connected to, part of, or within, the tablet 100 or smart phone 204.
As used herein, “video” is considered herein to be comprised of a series or sequence of still image frames, each image frame being comprised of a predetermined number of individual image elements such that when the image frames are displayed on a display device they represent or depict scenes in motion. In the case of images captured by a digital camera, the number of image elements in an image frame will depend on the number of individual picture elements in the camera that captured the images. Image frames with relatively large numbers of image elements will have greater detail in them than will image frames will relatively small numbers of image elements.
If the number of image elements in a digital image is greater than the number of picture elements that a display screen 102 can display, some image elements are discarded or subtracted in order to display the image on the display device. Conversely, if the number of image elements in a digital image is less than the number of picture elements that a display screen 102 can display, image elements can be added to fill the display device or a black band can be used to “fill” the portion of the display device picture elements not needed to display an undersized image.
The display screen 102 of the portable communications device 100 has a display size or viewable image size that is the actual amount of screen space available to display a picture, video or working space and does not include screen area obscured by the frame 106 of the device 100. In one embodiment, the display screen 102 has six hundred horizontal rows, with each row containing 1024 individual picture elements. The maximum displayable size of an image is thus an image having 1024 picture elements in the horizontal or “X” direction and six hundred picture elements in the vertical or “Y” direction. A still image or video images having more or less than 1024×600 picture elements thus requires cropping or filling respectively in order to fill the display 102 to its maximum viewable image size. Cropping an image and the filling or adding of image elements can also be used to create the effects of an image being decreased in size or “zoomed out” and increased in size or “zoomed in.” As used herein, the term “zoom” refers to manipulation of a displayed image or images, i.e., changing the size of one or more images displayed on the display screen 102, in order to make object's in a displayed image or images appear to be closer to, or farther from, an observer viewing the display screen 102. An object in a displayed image can be made to appear to increase or decrease in size by adding or subtracting image elements of the object, and which when displayed by a display device, depict the object as being larger or smaller respectively.
A conventional microphone 306 detects audio signals and couples them into the transmitter 300. Audio signals are modulated onto a carrier generated by the transmitter and radiated from the antenna 304. A speaker 308 coupled to the receiver 302 generates audible sound waves from audio signals recovered from RF signals received from the antenna 304. The transmitter 300, receiver 302, microphone 306 and speaker 308 imbue the portable communications device 100 with two-way communications functionality. An optional keypad 310 is coupled to a processor 312 through a conventional bus 314.
As used herein, a “bus” is considered to be a set of electrically-parallel conductors that connect components of computer system to each other. A bus allows the transfer of electric impulses from one component connected to the bus to any other component connected on the bus.
In
Video image data can also be obtained or received from external sources via other interfaces. Such interfaces include, but are not limited to, a transceiver 330 compatible with the well-known I.E.E.E. 802.11 standards, also known as “Wi-Fi.” An Ethernet adapter 332 and an USB port 334 also provide the ability to receive video data files, which can be routed through the processor 302 and into the video data memory device 316 via the first bus 324.
A video image scaler 318 is coupled to the video data memory 316. The scaler 318 is configured to be able to read data directly from the video data memory 316 itself and provide that data to the touch-sensitive display panel 102. The video image scaler 318 is configured to process data that it reads from the video data memory 316 and thereafter send the processed data to the display screen 102 where it is used to generate an image that can be perceived from the display screen 102. The scaler 318 thus does not modify data representing original content but instead modifies the data “on the fly” and presents the modified data, which will render a modified image. Equally important is that the scaler 318 processes data of different formats and which represents images that were obtained from or captured by devices external to, i.e., other than, the portable communications device 100 itself.
The scaler 318 is configured to convert video image file formats as they are read from the video data memory device 316. By way of example, the scaler 318 is configured to convert so-called “AVI” format filed to MPEG-3 or MPEG-4 format files.
The video image scaler 318 is configured to be able to read different sections of video data memory, and thus different portions of a digital image or images stored therein, via different memory ports, not shown but well known to those ordinary skill in the art. The video image scaler 318 is thus capable of reading data from the video data memory 316 which represents a portion of a full frame image stored in the video data memory 316 and is capable of “expanding” the data to fill, or over-fill the maximum image size displayable by the display panel 102.
Processes or methods of “zooming-in” or enlarging a portion of a digital image are well-known but almost all of them require image elements to be generated and added to an original, captured image. New image elements can be derived using a variety of different algorithms well known in the art. Description of them is therefore omitted for brevity.
In
A touch input detector 320 is depicted in the figure to denote that when a user presses one or more fingers up against the touch-sensitive display panel 102, the users touch or tactile input is detected 320. The tactile input can thus be acted upon or processed to control the adjustment or alteration of images displayed on the panel 102.
The various structures shown in
Using the structure depicted in
The operations that the processor 302 performs are determined by program instructions that the processor 312 obtains from a program memory 326 and executes. As shown in the figure, the program memory 326 and the processor 312 communicate with each other through a second bus 328. A second bus is depicted because in one embodiment, the processor 312 and the program memory 326 are co-located on the same silicon die. The bus 328 is thus comprised of various interconnections between the two functional devices on that die. In alternate embodiment, the program memory 326 is one or more semi-conductor memory devices, separate and apart from the processor 312. In such an embodiment, the second bus 328 is thus a conventional address/control/data bus, well-known to those of ordinary skill in the art.
Executable instructions stored in the program memory 326 imbue the processor 312 with the ability to read and detect tactile inputs or gestures that are themselves detected by the touch input detector 320. Such gestures and input include but are not limited to so-called pinching and un-pinching gestures.
As used herein, a pinching gesture is considered to be the simultaneous contact of two or more fingers against the surface of the display screen 102 and their lateral translation toward each other in a single, substantially continuous motion. As its name suggests, a pinching gesture is reminiscent of the act of pinching an object with one's thumb and forefinger. “Un-pinching” is considered to be the opposite motion, i.e., two fingers placed against the display screen 102 and spatially separated from each other while against the surface of the display screen 102.
All tactile inputs to the touch-sensitive display panel 102 necessarily occur at some location on the panel's surface. Where someone places his or her fingers against the display panel 102 can be readily determined as “x” and “y” coordinates using conventional techniques. The act of touch the display panel with two fingers and separating them from each other thus defines a location on the display panel and defines opposing vertices of a rectangle, the diagonal dimension of which is equal to the separation distance between the two fingers.
Instructions stored in the program memory 326 cause the processor 312 to “read” the starting location of a tactile input to the display panel 102 and the separation distance between the opposing vertices of a rectangle defined by the separation between two fingers as they are moved apart from each other and maintained in contact with the display screen surface. The contact and un-pinching motion thus define an enlargement or reduction factor, percentage or dimension, to be applied to subsequently-displayed image frames.
Executable instructions in the program memory cause the processor to issue instructions to the video image scaler 318, which cause the scaler 318 to create or generate additional pixels using the pixels enclosed within the selected portion of the display panel 102 for each and every subsequent image that is read from the video data memory 316 and displayed on the display panel 102. The image frames stored in memory are thus read from the video data memory 316 and scaled to increase or decrease the size of objects depicted in the captured images. The video image scaler 318 thus is configured to provide continuous “zoom-in” (captured object image enlargement) and “zoom-out” (captured object image reduction) functionality to video regardless of when and where the video images were recorded and how they were recorded. Unlike prior art devices, which are limited to operating on video captured by a device itself, the portable communications device 100 depicted in the figures and described above is able to operate on any source of video image information and provides the ability to zoom-in or zoom-out on areas of interest in a particular video stream or portion thereof.
The movement of fingers away from each other provide while they are in contact with a touch-sensitive display screen provides a scaling factor or number, usable by the video image scaler 318 to increase or decrease the size of a displayed image by adding or subtracting pixels from the image information obtained from the video data memory 316. The size or extent to which fingers are separated from each other in a un-pinching movement or moved toward each other in a pinching movement thus provides a scaling factor for the video image scaler 318. That same scaling factor is applied to all subsequently obtained images created from the data stored in the video data memory 316. At step 408, a decision or test is executed to determine whether or not the finger space is increasing or decreasing. The direction of movement and the distance that the two fingers are separated from each other thus provides the aforementioned scaling factor.
At step 408, if the finger spacing is increasing or decreasing if a scaling factor is generated accordingly. In the case of an increasing separation distance, at step 410 a scaling factor is calculated that is used to determine the number of pixels to add to the frame at step 420. Pixels within the selected region of the display are augmented by additional pixels that are generated to make the subsequent video image frames appear to be zoomed-in or enlarged.
If the finger spacing is decreasing, at step 422 a calculation is made to determine the number of pixels or percentage of pixels that extracted or removed from the selected image field at step 424. Subsequent video image frames are processed by repeating the steps as shown.
Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that while the video image scaler 318 is depicted as a separate structural element, the functions described herein as being performed by the video image scaler 318 can in fact be performed by program instructions residing in the program memory 326 or another program store. In such an embodiment, the program instructions thus act as and are equivalent to structure identified and described herein as the video image scaler 318.
Similarly, the touch input detector 320 and the functions it performs are depicted as being a separate structural element but can instead be accomplished by program instructions as well. In such an embodiment, program instructions that provide the functionality described herein and attributed to the touch input detector 320 in fact comprise structure.
Stated another way, the functions provided by the structures described above can in fact be provided by instructions or software for one or more processors operatively coupled to at least a video data memory device and a touch-sensitive display panel 102.
The foregoing description is for purposes of illustration only. The true scope of the invention is set forth in the appurtenant claims.
