Mouse Pointer Control via Differential Image Processing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional methods for controlling a mouse pointer on electronic devices, such as mobile communication terminals, face difficulties in accurately recognizing finger movements due to changing lighting conditions and similar colors between fingers and faces, requiring additional hardware and compromising portability.
Innovation Solution
A method and device that utilize an image photographing unit to capture and process differential images of fingers, allowing for accurate detection of finger movements by grouping and averaging pixel brightness values, even in complex backgrounds with changing lighting or similar colors, without the need for additional hardware.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If color information is used to extract hand position, then the method is simple, but continuous changes in surrounding lighting create difficulty in accurate extraction
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adapts to changing lighting conditions by continuously capturing image sequences and computing differential images between consecutive frames. This dynamic approach allows the system to track finger movements regardless of lighting changes, as the differential computation eliminates static background variations including lighting effects.
2Volume of moving object
If a front surface image photographing unit is used, then the device structure is compact, but the user's face with similar color to fingers is simultaneously photographed, making accurate boundary detection difficult
Solution Approach 1:
By using dynamic differential image processing between consecutive frames, the system distinguishes moving fingers from the static face background. The differential computation highlights only the moving objects (fingers) while suppressing static elements (face), enabling accurate boundary detection even when colors are similar.
Solution Approach 2:
The system exploits the dynamic color/brightness changes in the differential images caused by finger movement. By detecting regions with significant brightness differences between consecutive frames, the system identifies finger boundaries independent of absolute color values, overcoming the similarity between finger and face colors.
3Measurement precision
If additional hardware is added to improve finger detection accuracy, then detection precision improves, but portability is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the existing image photographing unit serve multiple functions: it captures both the user's face and the fingers for control purposes. By processing differential images from this single camera, the system achieves accurate finger detection without requiring additional specialized sensors or hardware, thus maintaining device portability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses its own existing resources (the front camera and image processing capabilities) to solve the finger detection problem. By computing differential images from sequences captured by the existing photographing unit, the system achieves accurate detection without external assistance or additional hardware.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a device for controlling a mouse pointer, providing a display unit; an image photographing unit for photographing images of a first object and a second object; and a controller for setting a point between the first object and the second object detected from the photographed images as a position of a mouse pointer on the display unit, and when a distance between the first object and the second object is less than a predetermined distance, determining that a user selection instruction for the point has been input. The device detects movement of fingers using differential images according to the movement of the fingers, so that even when a continuously changing surrounding lighting or a user face having the similar color with the finger is included in a background, it is possible to accurately identify the movement of the fingers.