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INNOVENTIONS' RotoView® - The Intuitive Display Navigation
Solution for Hand Held Devices
Background and
Problem Definition
Customer demand
for information and entertainment on the go, combined with the rapid
miniaturization of complex electronic circuits and the emergence of
high-resolution active TFT Liquid Crystal and OLED displays have vastly
increased the number and variety of smart hand-held devices with information
displays. Such devices now include smartphones, gaming devices and a variety of
hand-held computers, GPS based maps and others. In addition to the great active
displays that can be viewed from almost any angle, these devices also utilize
advanced processors and a large amount of internal memory. The main
limitation with hand held devices is the display's small size. It will always
remain small due to the hand held device's small form factor. This fact leads
to the challenge of displaying large amounts of complex information on a small
screen. An additional challenge is to enable single-hand operation of the
device. Mobile devices like the
smartphone use a variety of scrolling switches (resembling a sort of flat
joystick) or track balls. Most of the newer smartphones employ touch screen
controls. These approaches require cumbersome, two-hand operation. Touch screen
controls may cause unintended activation of a selection during a scrolling
operation, and typically results in fingerprints and dirt being left on the
screen. Another problem arises in touch screen navigated smartphones
when the user wishes to mark a "cut-and-paste" section on the display. Such
marking can easily be confused with unintentional commands to move the display.
INNOVENTIONS' patented RotoView technology was developed to
address these problems and to provide intuitive, single-hand view navigation
for hand-held devices.
The RotoView®
Solution RotoView "tilt and scroll"
technology has a unique Navigation mode. The large stored virtual display is
navigated by the user during Navigation mode in response to changes in
orientation at which the device is held. In particular, it allows the user to
navigate a large, constantly updating display in all directions. The
following example illustrates how a relatively large virtual display is
navigated during Navigation mode.
|
| Fig. 2. Stored
Virtual Display. |
Figure 2 shows the entire
stored virtual display of a picture to be viewed by the hand-held device. Of
course, it is assumed that the picture cannot fit the smaller size display of
the hand-held device and the trivial solution of reducing the size will result
in a picture too small to be viewed. Using the RotoView protocol, the hand-held
device is entered into the Navigation mode. During Navigation mode, the user
first rotates the device to the left (Fig. 3A) and then rotates to the right to
see beyond the right boundary of the display (Fig. 3B).
 |
 |
| Fig. 3A
|
Fig.
3B |
At any time, the user can
exit Navigation mode to fix the display (the Fixed mode), resume Navigation
mode and continue to rotate the device to the right to view the remainder of
the stored picture, as shown in Fig. 3C. Display navigation can occur in all
directions, depending on the user's hand tilt.
 |
|
| Please click
here to view our original RotoView animation. Newer technology deployment
is shown here. |
|
| Fig.
3C |
|
|
Another example of
RotoView's operation is in view magnification. Fig. 4A shows a regular display
which may contain too much information for the user to view conveniently on
such a small display. By commanding the unit to magnify the display and
activating the Navigation mode (Fig. 4B), the user can navigate the enlarged
display at his convenience.
| Fig. 4A.
Information is too small to view in the display. |
|
Fig. 4B. Once
the display is magnified, the user can navigate it with RotoView. |
|
RotoView Strategic Patents
The RotoView technology
and strategic patents gained major publicity starting in the early 2000s. In
addition to numerous editorial mentions over the past 10+ years, INNOVENTIONS
spent significant marketing efforts to bring the RotoView idea to the attention
of the major manufacturers of hand-held devices. Therefore, the reader of this
document should not be confused as to the originality and novelty of the
RotoView patents when noticing that most of today's hand held devices already
include the accelerometer, gyroscope or other form of sensor to sense the
orientation. The RotoView patents strategic prominence stem from the
fact that they are highly cited, as described in this
patent citation analysis.
RotoView Implementation
It is important that the entire operation of RotoView will be intuitive
and therefore easy to use, and yet be implemented at a low cost. RotoView can
use any tilt sensor that may already be built in the hand held device. It
utilizes various smart protocols and view navigation algorithms to switch
between Navigation and Fixed modes.
Choice of Orientation Sensors
RotoView technology can work with any orientation sensor that is available
in today's hand held devices. These include the following sensors: 1.
Accelerometers, which are typically silicon-based MEMS sensors. 2.
Gyroscopes, which are also based on MEMS technology. 3. Camera-based tilt
sensors which determine orientation based on changes between captured
images. 4. Magnetic sensors that detect orientation changes relative to
Earth's magnetic field. 5. Gravity based mechanical sensors.
Smart Protocols and
View Navigation Algorithms RotoView provides several protocol options to switch between
Navigation and Fixed modes. In addition to the use of a switch or touch screen
command to activate Navigation mode, RotoView may activate Navigation mode by
tapping on the enclosure of the hand held device. Another embodiment activates
the Navigation mode by a specific hand gesture. Both of these activation
options are well suited for single hand operation. The proprietary
RotoView Non-linear Dynamic Response (NLDR) algorithms
determine the amount of view navigation in response to the tilt and movement of
the hand held device. The NLDR algorithms exhibit the following main
features: 1. Response curves providing Non-linear relation between the
amount of tilt or hand movement and the amount (or rate) of view navigation.
2. Selection of different stored response curves for use by different
applications. 3. The response curves may further change dynamically during
the navigation process. While in
Navigation mode, response to the re-orientations of the device may change
dynamically as mentioned above. For example, at the start of the navigation,
the response is fairly coarse to bring the display to the general area. After a
few seconds within Navigation mode, the response automatically becomes more
refined, to allow exact placement of the display. As a result, RotoView does
not require an exact correlation between orientation changes and actual
navigation of the display, which allows the use of relatively low cost coarse
sensors to determine the orientation changes. Additional information
regarding the NLDR algorithm is available here.
Additional issues relating to the user
interface experience with RotoView are detailed
here.
Summary of
RotoView Features and Benefits
-
Allows users to view relatively
large virtual documents (e.g. web pages, maps, photos, spreadsheets) in mobile
units with small-sized displays, and provides seamless switching between
navigation and fixed modes, using a single hand operation.
-
RotoView technology can be
integrated with accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetic sensors, camera-based tilt
sensors, and all other orientation sensors available in today's hand held
devices.
-
Dynamically changing correlation
between orientation changes and display navigation to accommodate the user's
natural and intuitive hand control movements.
-
Combines efficient image
navigation and gestures commands.
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Tablet or eBook reader users gain
a natural way to navigate displays without using a mouse or pointer. Just tilt
the screen!
-
Can be quickly
implemented within the device's operating
systems and enhance all other applications running on the device.
Acceleremoters and gyroscopes have been recently incorporated within
smartphones for automatic "portrait/landscape" orientation detection and for
advanced gaming experience. These existing resources may be used with RotoView
for view navigation by simply adding the software driver.
-
By using solid-state sensor
technology that does not need to be precise (the RotoView software algorithm
"improves" upon sensor measurements), RotoView can be integrated with mobile
systems at a relatively low cost.
-
RotoView is the fastest method to
navigate the display and is therefore a must when navigating rapidly changing
displays for gaming applications or using large maps.
-
By eliminating buttons altogether
in small hand held devices, the design can be made much more rugged, and in the
extreme even water resistant.
-
RotoView navigation is well suited
to enhance today's multi-touch user interface. In particular, it solve the
problem of selecting cut-and-paste areas by using RotoView to navigate the view
and the touch screen for area selection and user commands.
-
RotoView navigation may enhance
video experience by allowing the user to "pan" around and beyon the video
contents using intuitive tilt and movements.
-
RotoView-enabled devices provide
"high tech" sophistication and feeling to users, thus enhancing the appeal of
the device. RotoView has the potential to impact the mobile device technology
for a long time by becoming a de-facto standard feature, similar to the impact
of the standard mouse on desktop systems.
RotoView is covered by US
Patents 6,466,198 and 6,933,923 and European patent EP1290672 in the UK,
France, Germany, and Italy. For more information, please contact Scott LaRoche,
1-281-879-6226, scott@innoventions.com.
INNOVENTIONS® Inc.
"INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS FROM INVENTIVE MINDS" ©2012 INNOVENTIONS, INC.
All rights reserved. RotoView and INNOVENTIONS are registered trademarks of
INNOVENTIONS, Inc. RotoView patents are available for purchase or
licensing. |

| "Some ideas are so simple, when you first hear of them you
think, 'Now why didn't I think of that?' RotoView is one such
invention." |
| "Here's a technology that could put a new spin on moving and
shaking... Don't be surprised if you see people waving their PDAs
around." |
| "Everyone is on the move. And a Houston, Texas-based firm
believes it has the tilt-to-navigate technology that manufacturers need to
enable products for the PDA and smart phone market. Theyve actually had
the technology for some time but the market and the pricing are finally
coming together to make a better business case for their tilt-to-navigate
technology." |
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