The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 13, 2002
Filed:
Oct. 23, 1998
Kenichi Harakawa, Chiba-ken, JP;
Takenaka Corporation, Osaka, JP;
Abstract
An image which represents a 3-D space virtually using a perspective method is displayed on a display, and an image of an information inputting person is picked up by a plurality of video cameras from different directions. While the information inputting person is pointing at an arbitrary position within a virtual 3-D space represented by the displayed image, a reference point which corresponds to the back of the information inputting person and a characteristic point which corresponds to a finger tip are respectively extracted from a plurality of images which are picked up by each of the video cameras, and the 3-D coordinates of these points are determined. The direction in which the position pointed to by the information inputting person is disposed within the virtual 3-D space is determined on the basis of the direction from the reference point to the characteristic point, and the distance between the information inputting person and the position pointed to by the information inputting person within the virtual 3-D space is determined on the basis of the distance between the reference point and the characteristic point. As a result, the 3-D coordinates of the position pointed to by the information inputting person within the virtual 3-D space can be determined.