Optical scanning-type touch panel

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided at the outside of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having optical scanning means for periodically scanning a light angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said plane and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• and
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light in said plane which is formed by said indicator based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the result of receiving light by said light receiving means,
• wherein said plane is rectangular,
• wherein said light recurrence reflection means is arranged on the outside of at least three sides of said display screen so that its light reflecting surface is substantially perpendicular to the light scanning surface,
• wherein said two sets of light sent/receive means are arranged on the outside of one side of said display screen where said light recurrence reflection means is not arranged, and
• wherein a distance d between a segment of a line connecting the centers of said two sets of light send/receive means and one side of said plane where said two sets of light send/receive means are arranged is set so as to satisfy the following equation:
• d≧dθ×L2/4δ
• Here, dθ:
• measuring accuracy
• δ:
• detecting accuracy
• L:
• length of a reference line (a distance between said two sets of light send/receive means).

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided at the outside of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having optical scanning means for periodically scanning a light angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said plane and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• and
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light in said plane which is formed by said indicator based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the result of receiving light by said light receiving means,
• wherein said plane is a quadrilateral display screen,
• wherein said light recurrence reflection means is arranged on the outside of at least three sides of said display screen so that its light reflecting surface is substantially perpendicular to the light scanning surface,
• wherein said two sets of light sent/receive means are arranged on the outside of one side of said display screen where said light recurrence reflection means is not arranged, and
• wherein a part or whole of said light recurrence reflection means is arranged in a sawtooth form to be more perpendicular to light projected from said two sets of light send/receive means.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel, comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided at the outside of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having optical scanning means for periodically scanning a light angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said plane and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light in said plane which is formed by said indicator based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the result of receiving light by said light receiving means;
• indicated position calculating means for calculating an indicated position by said indicator using a specified point on the cut-off region measured by said measuring means;
• cross section length calculating means for calculating a cross section length of said indicated based on the cut-off region measured by said measuring means and the indicated position calculated by said indicated position calculating means;
• size information storage means for storing information about size of plural types of objects;
• comparison means for comparing the information about size of said indicator obtained from the cross section length calculated by said cross section length calculating means and the information about size of plural types of objects stored in said size information storage means;
• judging means for judging a type of said indicator according to the compared result of said comparison means;
• and
• invalidating means for when said indicator is judged by said judging means as an indicator other than a specified one, invalidating the cut-off region measured by said measuring means and the indicated position calculated by said indicated position calculating means.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided at the outside of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having optical scanning means for periodically scanning a light angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said plane and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• and
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light in said plane which is formed by said indicator based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the result of receiving light by said light receiving means,
• wherein a region where said indicator cannot enter is provided between said plane and said light recurrence reflection means.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided at the outside of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having optical scanning means for periodically scanning a light angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said plane and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• and
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light in said plane which is formed by said indicator based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the result of receiving light by said light receiving means,
• wherein said scanning light is a pulse light, and
• wherein said optical scanning means includes control means for controlling pulse emission.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided at the outside of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having optical scanning means for periodically scanning a light angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said plane and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• and
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light in said plane which is formed by said indicator based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the result of receiving light by said light receiving means,
• wherein the light scanned by said optical scanning means enters directly said light receiving means without going by way of said recurrence reflection means at the start of scanning,
• wherein first comparison means for comparing a received light amount signal by said light receiving means with a first reference value which is comparatively large and second comparison means for comparing the received light amount signal with a second reference value which is comparatively small are provided, and
• wherein an output of the compared result by said first comparison means is a timing of the start of scanning.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a display screen of a flat display is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means arranged to the outside of three sides of said display screen;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means arranged on the outside of one side of said display screen where said light recurrence reflection means is not arranged, having light emitting means, optical scanning means for periodically scanning a light emitted from said light emitting means angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said display screen, and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• comparison means for comparing a light receiving signal by each of said light receiving means with a predetermined threshold value so as to detect a cut-off timing in the case where the indicator exists within the region of said plane;
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light by said indicator within the region of said plane based on a scanning angle of each of said optical scanning means and the compared result of said comparison means;
• and
• calculating means for calculating a position and size of said indicator within the region of said plane according to the measured result by said measuring means.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided to the outside of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having light emitting means, optical scanning means for scanning a light emitted from said light emitting means angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said plane, and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• and
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light in said plane which is formed by said indicator based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the result of receiving light by said light receiving means,
• wherein said light emitting means is arranged so that an optical axis of a light emitted therefrom intersects a scanning surface of the light of said optical scanning means, and said light receiving means is arranged so that directivity of a light received thereby intersects the scanning surface of the light of said optical scanning means.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided to the outside of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having light emitting means, optical scanning means for scanning a light emitted from said light emitting means angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said plane, and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical-scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• and
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light in said plane which is formed by said indicator based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the result of receiving light by said light receiving means,
• wherein said light emitting means is arranged so that a path of a light emitted therefrom to said optical scanning means goes away from the edge of said plane in a portion closer to said light emitting means, and said light receiving means is arranged so that directivity of a light received thereby goes away from the edge of said plane in a portion closer to said light receiving means.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided to the vicinity of the region of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having light emitting means, optical scanning means for scanning a light emitted from said light emitting means angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with the region of said plane, and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• comparison means for comparing a light receiving signal by said light receiving means with a predetermined threshold value so as to detect a cut-off timing in the case where the indicator exists within the region of said plane;
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light by said indicator within the region of said plane based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the compared result of said comparison means;
• calculating means for calculating a position and size of said indicator within the region of said plane according to the measured result by said measuring means;
• signal level detecting means for detecting a lowest level of a light receiving signal of said light receiving means;
• adding means for adding a predetermined value to the signal level detected by said signal level detecting means;
• and
• threshold value setting means for setting the add value obtained by said adding means in said comparison means as a threshold value.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided to the vicinity of the region of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having light emitting means, optical scanning means for scanning a light emitted from said light emitting means angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with the region of said plane, and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• comparison means for comparing a light receiving signal by said light receiving means with a predetermined threshold value so as to detect a cut-off timing in the case where the indicator exists within the region of said plane;
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light by said indicator within the region of said plane based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the compared result of said comparison means;
• calculating means for calculating a position and size of said indicator within the region of said plane according to the measured result by said measuring means;
• and
• time counting means for counting a continuous time of a level of a light receiving signal of said light receiving means in the case where the indicator does not exist on said plane,
• wherein said measuring means measures a cut-off region in the case where the compared result of said comparison means is changed within the time counted by said time counting means.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided to the vicinity of the region of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having light emitting means, optical scanning means for scanning a light emitted from said light emitting means angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with the region of said plane, and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• comparison means for comparing a light receiving signal by said light receiving means with a predetermined threshold value so as to detect a cut-off timing in the case where the indicator exists within the region of said plane;
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light by said indicator within the region of said plane based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the compared result of said comparison means;
• calculating means for calculating a position and size of said indicator within the region of said plane according to the measured result by said measuring means;
• and
• counting means for counting the number of times every time when said comparison means detects cut-off timings by the indicator existing on said plane,
• wherein said measuring means does not measure the cut-off region in the case where a counted value of said counting means is not less than two.

An optical scanning-type touch panel in which a region of a plane specified as an object to be touched is touched by an indicator so that information is inputted, said touch panel comprising:

• light recurrence reflection means provided at the outside of said plane;
• at least two sets of light send/receive means having optical scanning means for periodically scanning a light angularly in a plane which is substantially parallel with said plane and light receiving means for receiving a reflected light of the light scanned by said optical scanning means from said light recurrence reflection means;
• and
• measuring means for measuring a cut-off region of a scanning light in said plane which is formed by said indicator based on a scanning angle of said optical scanning means and the result of receiving light by said light receiving means,
• wherein said optical scanning means is composed of a polygon mirror having three through six reflecting surfaces.