International Business Machines Corporation

Evon C Greanias

Robert L Donaldson

Guy F Verrier

Alan Richard Tannenbaum

Michael S Gray

Frank L Stein

Gordon W Arbeitman

Yu L An

Walter S Rosenbaum

John Mark Zetts

C Richard Guarnieri

James T Repass

Charles C Tappert

Joonki Kim

David Glickman

Karl F Schroeder

Louis V Ruffino

Abijah S Fox

Ernesto F Yhap

John J Seeland, Jr

An improved touch overlay for the viewing surface of a display for detecting both finger touch and stylus location is disclosed. An upper and a lower set of transparent conductors are disposed on at least one transparent flexible insulating substrate and are oriented orthogonally with respect to each other. Depending on the orientation of the transparent conductors, top and bottom cover layers may be added to the overlay. The separation between the upper and lower conductors and a separation from the user's finger on the top surface of the overlay from the upper conductors is optimized. To speed finger touch sensing, the ambient capacitance of the overlay is reduced by increasing the separation between the upper and lower conductors layers. For improved operation, the present invention features a separation of at least 3 mils between upper and lower conductors. The separation between the top surface and the upper conductors is held to a minimum consistent with the preservation of integrity of the upper conductors when stylus pressure is applied. Means are also included in the overlay to improve the durability of the overlay with respect to repeated stylus pressure on top surface.

Touch overlay for improved touch sensitivity

An advanced user interface for use with a computer system operating on an integrated operating environment. The integrated operating environment allows a plurality of application programs to be running simultaneously, one of which is designated the active application program to which all input data is directed. The advanced user interface allows a user to select among user-friendly input devices to operate any application program according to his individual preferences without change to the application program code. The advanced user interface includes alternate input modules which translate the input signals transmitted from the various input devices into input messages useable by the rest of the interface. The advanced user interface also includes interface profiles which contain mappings of the input messages against corresponding commands useable by the application programs, the integrated operating environment or other modules of the advanced user interface itself. An environment link module refers to the interface profiles and matches the input message against the corresponding command for the application program active at the time the input signal was transmitted and send the corresponding command to that application program. The environment link module matches the input message against a corresponding command for an application which owns a window in which a key feature of a gesture is made.

Graphical user interface with gesture recognition in a multiapplication

An advanced user interface for use with a computer system operating on an integrated operating environment. The integrated operating environment allows a plurality of application programs to be running simultaneously, one of which is designated the active application program to which all input data is directed. The advanced user interface allows a user to select among user-friendly input devices to operate any application program according to his individual preferences without change to the application program code. The advanced user interface includes alternate input modules which translate the input signals transmitted from the various input devices into input messages useable by the rest of the interface. The advanced user interface also includes interface profiles which contain mappings of the input messages against corresponding commands useable by the application programs, the integrated operating environment or other modules of the advanced user interface itself. An environment link module refers to the interface profiles and matches the input message against the corresponding command for the application program active at the time the input signal was transmitted and send the corresponding command to that application program.

Advanced user interface

An improved stylus detection system for use on the surface of a display device. An overlay having horizontal and vertical transparent conductors is coupled to other elements of the systems through a bus having a minimal number of bus wires. A control processor issues command signal which selectively couple transparent conductors to a radiative measuring device to determine stylus position accurately. The system includes a radiative pickup stylus having a spherical antenna which receive the overlay signal independent of the angle at which it is held. Further, a contact detecting mode has been added to eliminate spurious contact position measured between strokes, when the stylus is proximate to but not in contact with the overlay.

Stylus sensing system

An improved finger touch and stylus detection system for use on the surface of a display device is disclosed. An overlay having horizontal and vertical transparent conductors is coupled to the other elements of the system through a bus having a minimum number of bus wires. A control processor issues command signals which selectively couples the transparent conductors to a capacitive measuring device and a radiative measuring device to determine finger and stylus position respectively. The improvements to the system include a radiative stylus having a spherical antenna which receives the overlay signal independent of the angle at which it is held. Further, a contact detecting mode has been added to eliminate spurious stylus positions measured between strokes, when the stylus is proximate to but not in contact with the overlay.

A data processing system is disclosed which is equipped with a secure user friendly input system. The input system comprises an array of horizontal and vertical conductor supported on a flexible, transparent overlay membrane secured to the viewing surface of the display of an individual workstation and a remotely sensed personal stylus. The stylus is equipped to receive electromagnetic signals from the array and transmit signals containing information concerning the stylus position on the overlay and stylus ID to a receiver at the workstation. The input system also includes a control processor operating in stored program instructions which control the detection and log-on procedures for the remotely sensed personal stylus.

Remotely sensed personal stylus

A minimum parallax stylus detection subsystem is disclosed for use with a graphic input grid overlay which is positioned on the viewing surface of a display device. The invention has a three phase operation wherein, during the first phase, the stylus is at a remote distance from the viewing surface of the display and therefore no representation of the stylus position is displayed. During a second phase, the stylus is brought within a first threshold distance from the viewing surface of the display, during which a cursor image is generated which is precisely positioned on the display corresponding to the detected position of the stylus. During a third phase of operation of the invention, the stylus is brought within a close proximity of the viewing surface of the display, during which the cursor image is removed from the display and an actual trace of the path of the stylus with respect to the graphic input grid overlay is shown. In this manner, the operator can focus attention on the displayed location of the cursor instead of on the physical location of the stylus, thereby minimizing the parallax error in the location of the stylus with respect to the displayed image.

Minimum parallax stylus detection subsystem for a display device

A system of information formatting and editing using handwritten input data on an all points addressable tablet. Input words are segmented then reformatted in a consistent manner of spacing and horizontal alignments to provide a legible output while still maintaining the handwritten format. Editing functions such as delete, add and move are provided in an interactive manner.

System for automatic adjustment and editing of handwritten text image

A combined finger touch and stylus detection system is disclosed for use on the viewing surface of the visual display device. Transparent conductors arranged in horizontal and vertical grid are supported on a flexible, transparent overlay membrane which is adaptable to a variety of displays. A unique interconnection pattern is provided between the transparent conductors in the array and buses which interconnect the conductors with the supporting electronics, whereby a minimum number of bus wires can be employed to service the array conductors and yet both unique finger touch location sensing and unique stylus location sensing can be accomplished. The system includes a control processor which operates on stored program instructions which, in a first embodiment provides for the alternate detection of either finger touch location or stylus location and, in a second embodiment, provides for the simultaneous detection of both finger touch location and stylus location. The resulting system provides the unique function of combined finger touch and stylus detection, is adaptable to a variety of display surfaces, is provided with a structure which is easily manufacturable, and which has an inherent long-term reliability.

Combined finger touch and stylus detection system for use on the viewing

A Chinese/Kanji on-line recognition system consisting of four main sections, these being tablet electronics, a signal filter and segment integration unit, a base stroke classification unit and a symbol element recognition unit, and a symbol recognition output table. The tablet electronics provides pen coordinate signals and pen up/down signals which are applied to the signal filter and segment integration unit to define segments of strokes which correspond to continuous motion of a pen on a tablet in a fixed direction. The base stroke classification unit classifies the motion of the pen between pen down and pen up occurrences into one of 42 categories and also indicates if the stroke has crossed a prior stroke. This is then analyzed by the symbol element recognition unit which interprets the base strokes that have been recorded for the word and generates a sequence of symbol elements, referred to as 'alphabet' components, that occur in this symbol. The sequence of symbol elements are interpreted in the symbol recognition output table which provides a form of a simple table look-up to determine the word that had been written. Only 72 basic symbol elements (alphabet) are required to synthesize all of the Chinese/Kanji vocabulary.

Chinese/Kanji on-line recognition system

A system for reducing storage requirements and accessing times in a text processing machine for automatic spelling verification and hyphenation functions. The system includes a method for storing a word list file and accessing the word list file such that legal prefixes and suffixes are truncated and only the unique root element, or 'stem', of a word is stored. A set of unique rules is provided for prefix/suffix removal during compilation of the word list file and subsequent accessing of the word list file. Spelling verification is accomplished by applying the rules to the words whose spelling is to be verified and application of the said rules provides, under most circumstances, a natural hyphenation break point at the prefix-stem and stem-suffix junctions.

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Chevy Chase, MD, United States of America

Evon C Greanias