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US 10,474,297 B2Granted
Projecting a structured light pattern onto a surface and detecting and responding to interactions with the same
Assigneeams Sensors Singapore Pte. Ltd.
InventorsChi Zhang, Florin Cutu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure describes projecting a structured light pattern projected onto a surface and detecting and responding to interactions with the same. The techniques described here can, in some cases, facilitate recognizing that an object such as a user's hand is adjacent the plane of a projection surface and can distinguish the object from the projection surface itself. Movement of the object then can be interpreted, for example, as a specified type of gesture that can trigger a specified type of operation to occur.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- (a) projecting a structured light pattern onto a projection surface, the structured light pattern being composed of light of a particular wavelength;
- (b) acquiring an image based on light of the particular wavelength reflected from a vicinity of the projection surface;
- (c) identifying, by one or more processors, regions of the acquired image
- for which there is a change in intensity data, relative to corresponding regions of a reference image, the change exceeding a predetermined threshold, and
- for which disparity data indicates the regions of the acquired image correspond to a feature that is within a specified distance of the projection surface;
- (d) determining, by the one or more processors based selectively on the identified regions of the acquired image, that the feature is a particular type of object;
- (e) repeating (b), (c) and (d) one or more times;
- (f) performing frame-to-frame tracking to determine a path of movement of the object;
- and
- (g) determining, by the one or more processors, that the object's path of movement represents a specified type of gesture.
7 more elements
An apparatus comprising:
- a first projector operable to project a structured light pattern onto a projection surface, the structured light pattern being composed of light of a particular wavelength;
- an image sensor operable to acquire images based on light of the particular wavelength reflected from a vicinity of the projection surface;
- and
- one or more processors operable collectively to:
- (a) identify regions of an acquired image
- for which there is a change in intensity data relative to corresponding regions of a reference image, the change exceeding a predetermined threshold, and
- for which disparity data indicates the regions of the acquired image correspond to a feature that is within a specified distance of the projection surface;
- (b) determine, based selectively on the identified regions of the acquired image, that the feature is a particular type of object;
- (c) repeat (a) and (b) one or more times for at least one other acquired image;
- (d) perform frame-to-frame tracking to determine a path of movement of the object;
- and
- (e) determine that the object's path of movement represents a specified type of gesture.
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.