Visual Display Content Source Identifier for Merged Images
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current automotive vehicle displays face challenges in associating graphic content with its source, especially when images from multiple sources are merged, as existing methods like colour keying become trivial when images are overlaid and backgrounds are keyed out, making it difficult to determine the source of user inputs.
Innovation Solution
A visual display content identifier system that includes a graphics controller module, an image merging module, a look-up table, and a screen sensor to associate each pixel with a content source, allowing user inputs to be routed to the appropriate system for processing, using techniques like colour keying or other merging processes to manage merged images from multiple sources.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If images from multiple sources are merged using colour keying, then the visual display can show combined content from different sources, but it becomes difficult to determine the source of graphic content at any particular location on the screen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the display screen into multiple zones, with each zone corresponding to content from a specific source. A zone map data structure is created that segments the screen regions and associates each region with its content source, allowing the system to track which source provides content in each area while still displaying merged images.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary processing system that receives images from multiple sources, creates a zone map, and routes touch inputs to the appropriate source. This intermediary layer (comprising the zone map generator and input router) mediates between the merged visual display and the underlying content sources, enabling source identification without altering the visual merging effect.
2Ease of operation
If clear rectangular areas are allocated to different sources on the screen, then user inputs can be easily associated with the generating system, but the display flexibility and merging capability is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by allowing different regions of the screen to have different properties - each zone in the zone map can be independently defined with its own source association. This enables arbitrary shaped regions and offset positioning for each content source, rather than requiring uniform rectangular allocations, thus providing both display flexibility and input association capability.
3Device complexity
If the same system handles all user inputs for merged content, then input processing is simplified, but the independence and specific processing requirements of individual content sources are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal input routing system that can handle inputs from multiple content sources through a single processing interface. The router uses the zone map to determine which source should handle each input, providing multi-functionality that adapts to different source configurations while maintaining a unified input processing architecture.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention provides an apparatus and method which allows identification of the system which provided images for each pixel of a touchscreen display which displays merged images of arbitrary shapes supplied from a plurality of systems. It further allows routing of user inputs to the appropriate system for further processing. Colour keying may be used to superimpose one image onto another. The invention finds particular application in the automotive field where images produced by an infotainment system may be merged with those produced by a mobile phone onto the in-vehicle display screen.