US 9,007,301 B1Granted

User interface

AssigneeGoogle Inc.

InventorsHayes Solos Raffle, Nirmal Patel

Life of this patent

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Abstract

Systems and methods for navigation and selection with eye gestures in a graphical display are provided, in which a graphical display of content may be provided to a wearer of a head-mountable device. A first signal may be received from a first sensor configured to detect an eye gesture of a first eye of the wearer. A second signal may then be received from a second sensor configured to detect an eye gesture of a second eye of the wearer. The first signal may be associated to a first command to navigate through or select an item in the graphical display of content provided by the head-mountable device, and the second signal may be associated to a subsequent command, based at least in part on a given output of the first command, to navigate through or select another item in the graphical display of content.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system comprising:

at least one processor;
a non-transitory computer-readable medium;
and
program instructions stored on the non-transitory computer-readable medium and executable by the at least one processor to:
receive a first signal corresponding to a first eye,
receive a second signal corresponding to a second eye,
detect a portion of the first signal that indicates the first eye is closed,
while the first signal indicates that the first eye is closed, responsively display a menu comprising a plurality of items on a display of a head-mountable device (HMD), wherein one of the plurality items is identified as a currently-selectable item at any given point in time, and
while the menu is displayed:
(i) analyze the second signal to detect for a portion of the second signal that indicates a blink of the second eye,
(ii) in response to detection of a portion of the second signal that indicates a blink of the second eye, change which of the plurality of items is identified as the currently-selectable item, and
(iii) in response to detection of a subsequent portion of the first signal that indicates the first eye is no longer closed, select the item that is identified as the currently-selectable item.

9 more elements

A method comprising:

receiving, by a wearable computing device, a first signal corresponding to a first eye;
receiving, by the wearable computing device, a second signal corresponding to a second eye;
detecting, by the wearable computing device, a portion of the first signal that indicates the first eye is closed;
while the first signal indicates that the first eye is closed, responsively displaying, by the wearable computing device, a menu comprising a plurality of items on a head-mountable display of the wearable computing device, wherein one of the plurality items is identified as a currently-selectable item at any given point in time;
and
while the menu is displayed:
(i) analyzing, by the wearable computing device, the second signal to detect for a portion of the second signal that indicates a blink of the second eye,
(ii) in response to detection of a portion of the second signal that indicates a blink of the second eye, changing, by the wearable computing device, which of the plurality of items is identified as the currently-selectable item, and
(iii) in response to detection of a subsequent portion of the first signal that indicates the first eye is no longer closed, selecting, by the wearable computing device, the item that is identified as the currently-selectable item.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 13/649,800Filed 11 Oct 2012
Granted: 14 Apr 2015
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification17 codes

G06F 3/013
Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality: eye tracking input arrangements
G02B 27/017
Head-up displays: head mounted
G06F 3/002
Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for…: specific…
G06F 3/005
Specific input/output arrangements not covered by G06F3/01 - G06F3/16: input arrangements through a video camera