Method and electronic device for gesture recognition

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9372540-B2
Application number	US-201113259006-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 19, 2011
Priority date	Apr 19, 2011
Publication date	Jun 21, 2016
Grant date	Jun 21, 2016

Abstract

Provided are a method and an electronic device for gesture recognition capable of dividing a display into a plurality of display regions assigned to a plurality of users, recognizing gestures of the plurality of users, and controlling the display regions assigned to the users who have made a gesture according to the recognized gestures. The method for gesture recognition includes: dividing a display into a plurality of display regions assigned to a plurality of users; recognizing gestures made by the plurality of users, respectively; and controlling the plurality of display regions respectively assigned to the plurality of users who have made the gestures according to the respective recognized gestures.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An electronic device for performing a function based on gesture recognition, the electronic device comprising:
a camera configured to capture an image;
a display; and
a controller configured to:
divide the display into a plurality of display regions, wherein at least two regions among the plurality of display regions are assigned respectively to a plurality of users and at least one common control region among the plurality of display regions is assigned to all users,
recognize gestures performed by the plurality of users based on the image,
control the plurality of display regions respectively assigned to the plurality of users performing the gestures, according to the respective gestures,
control the at least one common control region according to at least one of the all users'gestures to the common control region regardless of regions assigned respectively,
display at least one content on one region of the plurality of display regions,
move at least a portion of the at least one content to an outer side of the one region of the plurality of display regions when receiving a corresponding user's gesture, wherein the at least the portion of the at least one content overlapping with at least one other region of the plurality of display regions is not displayed, and
remove at least one region of the plurality of display regions when a user's gesture corresponding to the at least one region of the plurality of display regions is not received during a pre-set time interval,
wherein the pre-set time interval is determined according to a type of a content displayed on the at least one region.

2. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of display regions display at least two different types of content.

3. The electronic device of claim 2 , wherein the different types of content include a video signal, a webpage, an image, and an application.

4. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein when a first user chooses a first content, the first content is displayed on an entire display, and when a second user chooses the first content, the first content is displayed on one of the plurality of display regions.

5. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the controller divides the display into the plurality of display regions one of when a first user chooses to divide the display, when a second user selects a content, when the second user chooses to divide the display prior to selecting the content, and when the second user obtains a control right.

6. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the controller:
determines locations of the plurality of users based on the image, and
controls locations of the plurality of display regions according to the locations of the plurality of users.

7. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein when a pre-set event is detected while the display provides particular contents by an entire region of the display, the controller divides the display into the plurality of display regions.

8. The electronic device of claim 7 , wherein the controller continuously provides the particular contents to anyone of the plurality of display regions.

9. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the controller displays a plurality of cursors at coordinates corresponding to hands of each of the plurality of users through the display when the coordinates of the cursors are within the display regions assigned to the users corresponding to the cursors.

10. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein when the coordinates of the cursors are outside of the display regions assigned to the users corresponding to the cursors, the controller does not display the cursors or controls display attributes of the cursors.

11. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the controller identifies one of the plurality of users who has made one of the gestures from the image, and determines a display region assigned to the one user who has made the one gesture based on the identification results.

12. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein when a pre-set event occurs while the display is in a divided state having the plurality of display regions, the controller releases the divided state of the display.

13. The electronic device of claim 12 , wherein when the divided state of the display is released, the controller continuously provides contents, being provided to anyone of the plurality of display regions, to an entire screen of the display.

14. The electronic device of claim 13 , wherein the pre-set event is a pre-set gesture, and the controller continuously provides the contents, which have been provided to a display region other than one assigned to a user who has made the pre-set gesture, to the entire screen of the display.

15. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein when one user is included in the image captured by the camera while the display is in a divided state having the plurality of display regions, the controller releases the divided state of the display.

16. The electronic device of claim 15 , wherein when the divided state of the display is released, the controller provides contents, which have been provided to the display region assigned to the one user included in the image, to an entire screen of the display.

17. The electronic device of claim 16 , wherein when the divided state of the display is released, the controller stores the contents which have been provided to a display region other than one assigned to the user included in the image, and when a plurality of users are included in the image, the controller divides again the display into the plurality of display regions and provides the contents, which have been provided to the entire screen, and the stored contents to the plurality of display regions, respectively.

18. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein when only one user is included in the image captured by the camera while the display is in a divided state having the plurality of display regions, the controller changes display attributes of at least one of the plurality of display regions.

19. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein when only one user is included in the image captured by the camera while the display is in a divided state having the plurality of display regions, the controller controls all the plurality of display regions according to the gestures of the one user included in the image.

20. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one common control region comprises at least one of a volume button, a power button and a specific button able to access a basic function of the electronic device.

21. An electronic device comprising:
a camera;
a display; and
a controller configured to:
divide the display into first and second display regions and a common control region,
recognize gestures of first and second users through the camera,
control first contents displayed on the first display region according to the first user's gesture,
control second contents displayed on the second display region according to the second user's gesture,
control third contents displayed on the common control region according to the first and second users' gestures to the common control region regardless of regions assigned respectively and display at least one of the first, second and third contents not to overlap with at least one other of the first, second and third contents,
display at least one content on the first region,
move at least a portion of the at least one content to an outer side of the f

Assignees

• Park Jong Soon
• Yeo Junhee
• Jang Gu-Ang
• Lg Electronics Inc

Inventors

• Park Jong Soon
• Yeo Junhee
• Jang Gu-Ang

Classifications

• G06F2203/0381

  Multimodal input, i.e. interface arrangements enabling the user to issue commands by simultaneous use of input devices of different nature, e.g. voice plus gesture on digitizer · CPC title

• G06F2203/04803

  Split screen, i.e. subdividing the display area or the window area into separate subareas · CPC title

• G06F3/017 Primary

  Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures (interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883) · CPC title

• G06F3/0304

  Detection arrangements using opto-electronic means (constructional details of pointing devices not related to the detection arrangement using opto-electronic means G06F3/033; optical digitisers G06F3/042) · CPC title