Position-coding pattern having tag coordinates encoded by successive subsequences of cyclic position code

#The present invention relates to a position-coding pattern on a surface.

#The following applications have been filed by the Applicant simultaneously with the present application:

#12/539,588 12/539,589 12/539,597 12/539,599 12/539,603 12/539,605 The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incorporated herein by reference.

#Preferred and other embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of non-limiting example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

#FIG. 1 is a schematic of a relationship between a sample printed netpage and its online page description;

#FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of basic netpage architecture with various alternatives for the relay device;

#1.1 Netpage System Architecture

#In a preferred embodiment, the invention is configured to work with the netpage networked computer system, an overview of which follows. In brief summary, the preferred form of the netpage system employs a computer interface in the form of a mapped surface, that is, a physical surface which contains references to a map of the surface maintained in a computer system. The map references can be queried by an appropriate sensing device. Depending upon the specific implementation, the map references may be encoded visibly or invisibly, and defined in such a way that a local query on the mapped surface yields an unambiguous map reference both within the map and among different maps. The computer system can contain information about features on the mapped surface, and such information can be retrieved based on map references supplied by a sensing device used with the mapped surface. The information thus retrieved can take the form of actions which are initiated by the computer system on behalf of the operator in response to the operator's interaction with the surface features.

#In its preferred form, the netpage system relies on the production of, and human interaction with, netpages. These are pages of text, graphics and images printed on ordinary paper, but which work like interactive webpages. Information is encoded on each page using ink which is substantially invisible to the unaided human eye. The ink, however, and thereby the coded data, can be sensed by an optically imaging sensing device (or reader) and transmitted to the netpage system. The sensing device may take the form of a clicker (for clicking on a specific position on a surface), a pointer having a stylus (for pointing or gesturing on a surface using pointer strokes), or a pen having a marking nib (for marking a surface with ink when pointing, gesturing or writing on the surface). References herein to “pen” or “netpage pen” are provided by way of example only. It will, of course, be appreciated that the pen may take the form of any of the sensing devices or readers described herein.