Light Blue Optics Ltd

Promethean Limited

Cambridge Enterprise Limited

Cambridge Display Technology Limited

Cambridge University Technical Services Limited

Poly Communications International Unlimited Company

Plantronics, Inc.

Adrian James Cable

Euan Christopher Smith

Paul Richard Routley

Nicholas A Lawrence

Gareth John McCaughan

Raul John Benet Ballester

Peter Mash

Edward Buckley

William Alden Crossland

Neil Collings

Timothy David Wilkinson

Shane Thornton

James E G Wright

Barak Maoz

Eyal Katz

Julian Hall

John Andrew

Peter William Tudor Mash

Lilian Lacoste

Nic Lawrence

Raul Benet Ballester

Gareth John Mccaughan

An image capture system comprises a camera configured to capture an image of a whiteboard, or similar, viewed from an acute angle. A linear polarizer has a surface substantially perpendicular to a plane of the board and an axis of polarization substantially perpendicular to the plane of the board or within 30&#xb0; of the perpendicular to the plane of the board. The camera is configured to capture the image of the board through the polarizer. A normal to the polarizer is directed in a different direction to a direction defined by an optic axis of the camera.

Image processing systems and methods

A method of capturing writing or drawing on a whiteboard comprises inputting camera data for a succession of image frames of the whiteboard, and processing data from said image frames to remove parts of the image frames corresponding to parts of a user or user pen writing or drawing on the whiteboard. The processing involves filtering to distinguish between i) motion of the user/user pen parts in the image frames, and ii) writing/drawing image information in the image frames which appears or changes during said writing or drawing but which is thereafter substantially unchanging. The filtered data defines captured writing or drawing from the whiteboard.

Various approaches to touch sensing systems are disclosed As an example, a touch sensing system is disclosed that includes: an optical beam source to provide an optical beam; a pair of controllable beam deflectors comprising at least first and second beam deflectors, wherein the first beam deflector is configured to deflect the optical beam through a first angle towards a touch sensing region, and wherein the second beam deflector is configured to deflect scattered light from an object in the touch sensing region through a second angle; a detector, in particular a detector array; and an imaging system to image the deflected scattered light from the second beam deflector onto the detector array. The first and second beam deflectors are controlled in tandem to scan the touch sensing region.

Scanning touch systems

We describe a touch sensing system projecting light defining a touch sheet above a surface and a camera to capture a touch image of light scattered by a pen intersecting the touch sheet. A signal processor identifies a lateral location of the pen. The pen includes a light source to provide a light signal, and the system also includes two photodiodes to detect the signal from the pen. The touch detection is augmented by modelling the signals received at the photodiodes, dependent on the distance and angle of a pen, and using this to derive a probability of the observed received signals given the pen location determined from the touch sheet. This information can be used, for example, to allocate identities to the pens.

Touch sensing systems

We describe a touch sensitive holographic image display device for holographically projecting a touch sensitive image at an acute angle onto a surface on which the device is placed. The device includes holographic image projection optics comprising at least one coherent light source illuminating a spatial light modulator (SLM), output optics to project a hologram onto an acute angle surface, and a remote touch sensing system to remotely detect a touch of a location within or adjacent to the holographically displayed image. A control system is configured to provide data defining an image for display, to receive detected touch data, and to control the device responsive to remote detection of a touch of a the displayed image.

Touch sensitive holographic displays

A touch sensitive device, the device comprising: a touch sensor light source to project a plane of light above a surface; a camera directed to capture a touch sense image from a region including at least a portion of said plane of light, said touch sense image comprising light scattered from said plane of light by a plurality of said objects simultaneously approaching or touching said surface; a signal processor coupled to said camera, to process a said touch sense image from said camera to identify a lateral location of each of said objects; and an output object position output, to provide output object positions for said plurality of objects; and wherein said signal processor is further configured to: input a succession of said touch sense images; process each said touch sense image to identify a plurality of candidate object touch positions; and filter said candidate object touch positions from said successive touch sense images to link said candidate object touch positions to previously identified output object positions for said plurality of objects; and update said previously identified output object positions using said linked candidate object touch positions.

Touch sensitive display devices

We describe a touch sensitive image display device for projecting a touch sensitive displayed image at an acute angle onto a surface on which the device is placed, the device comprising: a first light source to project a first light distribution; a second light source to project a second light distribution; a touch sensor system to remotely detect touch of an area of said surface within or adjacent to said displayed image by detecting change of said first light distribution, and having an output to provide a detected touch signal; a presence sensor system to remotely detect presence of an object at least partially within said second light distribution by detecting change of said second light distribution, and having an output to provide a detected presence signal; a controller configured to control said device responsive to said detected touch signal and further configured to control said device responsive to said detected presence signal.

Display device

We describe a touch sensitive image display device for projecting a touch sensitive displayed image at an acute angle onto a surface on which the device is placed. The device comprises: light sources to project two-dimensional first and second light distributions in respective first and second planes; and a multi-pixel sensor system to remotely detect touch of an area of said surface within or adjacent to the displayed image by detecting light from the first distribution to provide a detected touch signal. The multi-pixel sensor system also remotely detects presence of an object within the second light distribution to provide a detected presence signal. The device is configured to multiplex projection of the first light and second distributions. A controller has an input to receive the detected touch and detected presence signals and is configured to control the device responsive to these signals.

Touch sensitive image display

A method of displaying a video image comprises receiving sequential image frames at a processor. Each image frame is processed to obtain a kinoform. A programmable diffractive element such as an SLM represents the sequence of kinoforms allowing reproduction of the image using a suitable illumination beam.

Apparatus and method for displaying a video image

This invention relates to methods, apparatus, and computer program code for the holographic display of images. We describe a method of displaying an image holographically. The method includes displaying a hologram on pixels of a spatial light modulator (SLM) and illuminating the SLM such that the image is displayed in pixels of a replay field (RPF) of the hologram. The method further includes subdividing the replay field into a plurality of spatially interlaced regions, and displaying holograms for each of the interlaced regions of the replay field sequentially at different times such that in an observer's eye the interlaced regions integrate to give the impression of the image and such that interference between adjacent pixels of the replay field is reduced.

Holographic image display systems

This invention relates to holographic image display systems, and to related methods and processor control code. We describe a method of displaying an image holographically, the method including: inputting display image data defining said image for display; processing said image data to determine first image data representing a first spatial frequency portion of said image data and second image data representing a second spatial frequency portion of said image data, wherein said second spatial frequency is higher than said first spatial frequency; displaying a hologram of said first image data on a spatial light modulator (SLM) to form a holographically-generated intermediate real image; modulating said intermediate real image using said second image data to display said image.

Holographic image display system

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for displaying images using multi-line addressing (MLA) or total matrix addressing (TMA) techniques, with reduced noise. Embodiments of the invention are particularly useful for driving OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays.

Image processing systems

The invention relates to method, computer program code and signal processing/image display systems for displaying one or more images using holographic techniques. We describe a method of generating data for displaying an image defined by displayed image data using a plurality of holographically generated temporal subframes, the temporal subframes being displayed sequentially in time such that they are perceived as a single noise-reduced image. The method includes generating from the displayed image data holographic data for each subframe of said set of subframes such that successive replay of holograms defined by said holographic data for said subframes gives the appearance of said image, and wherein the method further includes, when generating said holographic data for a said subframe, compensating for noise in said displayed image arising from one or more previous subframes of said sequence of holographically generated subframes.

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Adrian James Cable