Stylus position sensing and digital camera with a digital micromirror device

Abstract

Disclosed is a digital micromirror device (DMD) based projector in which the position of a stylus with respect to a projected image can be determined automatically. In one embodiment, the stylus includes a detector capable of detecting illumination from a single pixel and the plurality of pixels in the DMD array are sequentially energized until a pixel reflects light to the stylus detector. Since the location of that pixel is known, the position of the stylus adjacent that pixel on the image is also known. In another embodiment, light is emitted from the stylus and the DMD array is sequenced in order to reflect light from the array to a photodetector. Again, when a pixel is sequenced so as to reflect light to the detector, the position of the stylus with respect to the image is related to the image of the pixel with respect to the pixel's location in the array. A further embodiment utilizes a general illumination source of the screen with infrared radiation and a reflective stylus which reflects the infrared radiation back to the DMD array. As before, sequencing of the DMD array and detection of the pixel associated with the reflected IR radiation provides an indication of the stylus location. In a further embodiment, a DMD array is utilized to sequentially address all of the pixels of a subject image thereby providing an output of each sequenced pixel to a data storage device forming a digital camera.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.