Multi-touch input discrimination

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9024906-B2
Application number	US-201414444848-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 28, 2014
Priority date	Jan 3, 2007
Publication date	May 5, 2015
Grant date	May 5, 2015

Abstract

Techniques for identifying and discriminating between different types of contacts to a multi-touch touch-screen device are described. Illustrative contact types include fingertips, thumbs, palms and cheeks. By way of example, thumb contacts may be distinguished from fingertip contacts using a patch eccentricity parameter. In addition, by non-linearly deemphasizing pixels in a touch-surface image, a reliable means of distinguishing between large objects (e.g., palms) from smaller objects (e.g., fingertips, thumbs and a stylus) is described.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method to discriminate input sources to a touch-surface device, comprising:
obtaining a proximity image;
compensating the proximity image for background noise;
filtering the proximity image to reduce spurious peaks, the filtering being distinct from the compensating;
segmenting the proximity image to identify a plurality of patches having patch pixel values;
reducing or down-scaling peripheral patch pixel values for one or more of the plurali…

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Westerman Wayne Carl

Classifications

• G06F2203/04101

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06K9/00375

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F3/0421 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F3/044

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F3/041

  Physics · mapped topic