Patent · US Expired

Pointing device which uses an image picture to generate pointing signals

US6351257B1 · kind B1 · utility

41Cited by
4References
6Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateAug 13, 1999
Grant dateFeb 26, 2002
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 13, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F2203/0336
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The invention relates to a pointing device which uses an image picture to generate pointing signals. The pointing device comprises a housing, a line-shaped contact image sensor installed on an upper side of the housing for inputting a line-shaped image and generating a corresponding line image signal, and an image processing circuit installed in the housing and connected to the image sensor for receiving and processing the line image signal generated by the image sensor. A user can move an image picture across the image sensor in a direction perpendicular to the line direction of the image sensor to sequentially generate a series of line image signals, and the image processing circuit saves the series of line image signals in a bit map format which contains the image of the image picture in it. When the user moves the image picture across the image sensor to generate a first line image signal and a second line image signal, the image processing circuit will convert the first and second line image signals into first and second coordinates according to the positions of the first and second line image signals within the bit map, and generate a pointing signal according to the differen…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.