Patent Application
20130328617
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a touch device and a method for detecting touches using the touch device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a touch device capable of determining whether a touch block is corresponding to a single touch or a multi-touch and a method for detecting touches using the touch device.
2. Description of Related Art
With rapid developments and applications of the information technology, wireless mobile telecommunication, and information appliances, the input devices of many information products are changed from traditional keyboard, mouse and so forth to touch panels, so as to satisfy the requirements of convenience in carrying, light weight, and user-friendly operations. Currently, touch panels can be generally categorized into capacitive touch panels and resistive touch panels. With the increasing of the demands on the multi-touch technology, the projected capacitive touch technology becomes one of the main streams of touch panel technologies.
Since the human body can be regarded as a good conductor, the transparent electrode (such as indium-tin oxide electrode, ITO electrode) of the projected capacitive touch panel and the human body together form a capacitor. While the human body, such as the finger, approaches the projected capacitive touch panel, the capacitance of each of the touch regions of the projected capacitive touch panel varies. Accordingly, the touch point on which the human body touches the projected capacitive panel can be detected. However, two touch points are too closed to each other, which leads to that the touch regions with varied capacitances are adjacent to each other. Thus, the touch regions with varied capacitances are together regarded as a single touch point. Therefore, the touch device cannot correctly responses to the touch points where the user touches the touch panel.
The invention is directed to a touch device and a method for detecting touches using the touch device capable of detecting whether a touch block is corresponding to a single touch or a multi-touch.
The present invention provides a touch device comprising a touch panel and a touch sensing unit. The touch panel comprises a plurality of touch regions. The touch sensing unit is coupled to the touch panel to detect a plurality of touch values corresponding to the touch regions and to determine a touch block according to the touch values and a touch threshold value. The touch sensing unit sequentially compares the touch values corresponding to the adjacent touch regions within the touch block with one another to determine whether there is a touch value trough point and determines whether the touch block corresponds to a single touch or a multi-touch based on whether there is the touch value trough point. The touch regions in the touch block are adjacent to one another.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, the touch sensing unit regards the touch region corresponding to a first maximum touch value as a first touch point and uses the first touch point as a comparison starting point to sequentially compare the touch values corresponding to the adjacent touch regions with one another. When a first touch value corresponding to one of the adjacent touch regions which is relatively farther away from the first touch point is larger than a second touch value corresponding to another of the adjacent touch regions which is relatively closer to the first touch point, the touch sensing unit determines the second touch value is the touch value trough point and determines the touch values corresponding to the first touch point according to the touch value trough point. The touch sensing unit regards the touch region which corresponds to a second maximum touch value among the touch values not corresponding to the first touch point as a second touch point.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, when the touch values corresponding to the touch block have been compared with one another already, the touch sensing unit stops determining the touch value trough point of the touch block.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, when there is no touch value trough point, the touch sensing unit determines the touch block corresponds to the single touch. When the there is a touch value through point, the touch sensing unit determines the touch block corresponds to the multi-touch.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, the touch panel includes a projected capacitive touch panel or a digital resistive touch panel.
The present invention further provides a method for detecting touch on a touch device and comprises steps of obtaining a plurality of touch values respectively corresponding to a plurality of touch regions of a touch panel and, according to the touch values and a touch threshold value, determining a touch block, wherein the touch regions within the touch block are adjacent to one another. The touch values corresponding to the adjacent touch regions within the touch block are sequentially compared with one another to determine whether there is a touch value trough point. According to whether there is a touch value trough point, it is determined whether the touch block corresponds to a single touch or a multi-touch.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, the step of sequentially comparing the touch values corresponding to the adjacent touch regions within the touch block with each other to determine whether there is the touch value trough point comprises regarding the touch region with a first maximum touch value among the touch values corresponding to the touch block as a first touch point. The touch values corresponding to the adjacent touch regions are sequentially compared with one another by using the first touch point as a comparison starting point. When a first touch value corresponding to one of the adjacent touch regions which is relatively farther away from the first touch point is larger than a second touch value corresponding to another of the adjacent touch regions which is relatively closer to the first touch point, the second touch value is determined to be the touch value trough point. The touch values corresponding to the first touch point is determined according to the touch value trough point and the touch region which corresponds to a second maximum touch value among the touch values not corresponding to the first touch point is regarded as a second touch point.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, the step of detecting the touch on the touch panel further comprises, when the touch values corresponding to the touch block have been compared with one another already, stopping determining the touch value trough point of the touch block.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, each of the touch values corresponding to the touch block is larger than or equal to the touch threshold value.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, the step of determining whether the touch block corresponds to the single touch or the multi-touch according to whether there is a touch value trough point comprises when there is no touch value trough point, determining the touch block corresponds to the single touch and when the there is a touch value through point, determining the touch block corresponds to the multi-touch.
Accordingly, in the touch device and the method for detecting touches used by the touch device of the embodiments of the present invention, the touch values corresponding to the adjacent touch regions within the touch block are sequentially compared to one another to determine whether there is a touch value trough point and it is determined that whether the touch block corresponds to the single touch or the multi-touch based on whether there is the touch value trough point. Further, according to the determined touch value trough point, the touch points respectively corresponding to the touch regions within the touch block are differentiated.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to, provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
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.
More specifically, after obtaining the touch values VT corresponding to the touch regions 121, the touch sensing unit 110 determines whether there are touch blocks within the touch panel 120 according to the touch values of the touch regions 121 and the touch threshold value. The touch sensing unit 110 filters out the touch regions with which the corresponding touch value VT is smaller than the touch threshold value. Further, when there are touch regions which are not filtered out, the touch regions among these touch regions that not filter out which are adjacent to one another are together regarded as a touch block. In other words, the touch values VT corresponding to the touch regions belonging to the touch block are larger than or equal to the touch threshold value and the touch regions belonging to the same touch block are adjacent to one another. When all of the touch regions are filtered out, there is no touch block.
When the touch sensing unit 110 determines there is no touch block within the touch panel 120, it represents that the touch panel has not been touched. In other words, there is no touch point on the touch panel 120. Meanwhile, the touch sensing unit 110 stops further detection action or procedures. When the touch sensing unit 110 detects one touch block, it means the touch panel 120 is at a status that the touch panel 120 is touched. In other words, there are at least one touch point on the touch panel 120. Meanwhile, the touch sensing unit 110 performs a data processing procedure on the touch value VT corresponding to the same touch block to determine whether the touch block is corresponding to the single touch or the multi-touch and to determine the touch point of the touch block.
During the data processing procedure, the touch sensing unit 110 regards the touch region corresponding to the maximum touch value (i.e. the first maximum touch value) as a first touch point and sequentially compares the touch values corresponding to the adjacent touch regions with one another by using the first touch point as the comparison starting point. When, among two adjacent touch regions, the touch value VT (i.e. the first touch value) of one touch region which is relatively farther away from the first touch point is larger than the touch value VT (i.e. the second touch value) of the other touch region which is relatively closer to the first touch point, the touch sensing unit 110 determines the touch value VT of the touch region which is relatively closer to the first touch point to be a touch value trough point. Moreover, the touch sensing unit 110 determines whether the touch value corresponding to the touch region corresponds to the first touch point according to the determined touch value trough point. That is, according to the determined touch value trough point, the touch block is divided, wherein the touch values of the touch regions including the first touch point correspond to the first touch point and the touch values of the touch regions which do not include the first touch point do not correspond to the first touch point.
In addition, the touch region having the maximum touch value (i.e. the second maximum touch value) among the touch values VT which are not corresponding to the first touch point is regarded as a second touch point and it is determined whether there are other touch value trough points in order to determine whether there are other touch points according to the aforementioned determination procedure. After all of the touch values corresponding to the touch block are compared with one another, the data processing procedure of the touch regions is finished. Therefore, the touch sensing unit 110 stops detecting the touch value trough point of the touch block. Accordingly, the touch sensing unit 110 determines whether the touch block corresponds to the single touch or the multi-touch based on whether the touch value trough point is determined and further differentiates the touch points corresponding to the touch regions within the touch block from one another based on the determined touch value trough point.
After determining the touch block 210, the touch sensing unit 110 defines the touch region with the maximum touch value (which is 65 herein) as the first touch point TP1. Then, starting from the first touch point TP1, the touch values of two adjacent touch regions in the touch block 210 are compared with each other, wherein the comparison path can be referred to the arrow shown in
As shown in
Accordingly, when the touch value (such as 28, 35 and 18) are determined as the touch value trough points VP, theses touch value trough points VP are not further compared with other touch value in the touch value comparison. Furthermore, by using these touch value trough points VP, the touch block 210 are divided into two areas (such as the oblique-line filled lattice area and the blank lattice area shown in
According to
Accordingly, the touch sensing unit 110 determines the touch block 210 corresponds to the multi-touch and determines the touch value trough point VP by comparing the touch values corresponding to two adjacent touch regions. Further, by using the touch value trough point VP, the touch sensing unit 110 determines the touch points (such as the first touch point TP1 or the second touch point TP2) respectively corresponding to the touch regions (i.e. touch values). Therefore, when the plurality of the touch point are too close to one another which leads to the touch regions corresponding to the touch points are adjacent to one another, the touch sensing unit 110 divides the touch regions respectively corresponding to the touch points by referring to the touch value trough point VP. Hence, the aforementioned adjacent touch regions are not erroneously determined to be corresponding to the same touch point.
Altogether, in the touch device and the method for detecting touches used by the touch device of the embodiments of the present invention, the touch values corresponding to the adjacent touch regions within the touch block are sequentially compared to one another to determine whether there is a touch value trough point and it is determined that whether the touch block corresponds to the single touch or the multi-touch based on whether there is the touch value trough point. Further, according to the determined touch value trough point, the touch points respectively corresponding to the touch regions within the touch block are differentiated.
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 descriptions, it is intended that the present invention covers modifications and variations of this invention if they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
