U.S. patent application number 09/819285 was filed with the patent office on 2001-10-04 for electronic device having a display.
This patent application is currently assigned to U.S. PHILIPS CORPORATION. Invention is credited to Bell, David A., Byrnes, Nigel J., Simons, Paul R..
Application Number | 20010026249 09/819285 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 9888870 |
Filed Date | 2001-10-04 |
United States Patent
Application |
20010026249 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Bell, David A. ; et
al. |
October 4, 2001 |
Electronic device having a display
Abstract
An electronic device (10), such as a portable telephone or PDA,
has a display (12) in the form of a pixel display with an image
deflection system (8) overlying the display (12). The display is
controlled to provide at least two independent display images
which, when displayed through the image deflection system (8), are
individually visible from different viewing positions relative to
the screen. Suitably, the image deflection system (8) comprises a
lenticular screen with the lenticles (24) extending horizontally or
vertically across the display (12) such that the different views
may be seen through tilting of the device.
Inventors: |
Bell, David A.; (London,
GB) ; Simons, Paul R.; (Redhill, GB) ; Byrnes,
Nigel J.; (Reigate, GB) |
Correspondence
Address: |
Michael E. Marion
Corporate Patent Counsel
U.S. Philips Corporation
580 White Plains Road
Tarrytown
NY
10591
US
|
Assignee: |
U.S. PHILIPS CORPORATION
|
Family ID: |
9888870 |
Appl. No.: |
09/819285 |
Filed: |
March 28, 2001 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
345/9 ;
348/E13.022; 348/E13.029; 348/E13.033; 348/E13.037; 348/E13.043;
348/E13.059; 348/E13.071 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04N 13/305 20180501;
H04N 13/334 20180501; H04N 13/286 20180501; H04N 13/194 20180501;
H04N 13/349 20180501; G09G 3/003 20130101; H04N 13/398 20180501;
G09G 3/36 20130101; H04N 13/324 20180501; G02B 30/27 20200101; H04N
2013/403 20180501 |
Class at
Publication: |
345/9 |
International
Class: |
G09G 005/00 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Mar 31, 2000 |
GB |
0007863.4 |
Claims
1. An electronic device having a display and an image deflection
system overlying the display, wherein the display is controlled to
provide at least two independent display images which, when
displayed through the image deflection system, are individually
visible from different viewing positions relative to the
display.
2. A device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the image deflection
system comprises a lenticular screen.
3. A device as claimed in claim 2, wherein lenticles of the
lenticular screen extend across the display.
4. A device as claimed in claim 2 wherein each lenticle of the
lenticular screen is associated with three or more display
images.
5. A device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said display is in the
form of a pixel display.
6. A device as claimed in claim 5, wherein the display is a liquid
crystal display.
7. A device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said device is
portable.
8. A device as claimed in claim 7, wherein said device is a mobile
telephone.
9. A device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said device is a
television.
Description
[0001] This invention relates to an electronic device having a
display.
[0002] Electronic devices (such as portable telephones, electronic
organisers or personal digital assistants--PDA's) are becoming
increasingly complex, and it is now routine for such devices to use
a pixel display to display information to the user of the device.
Indeed, the user interface for such devices offers an increasing
number of options to the user, but of course the amount of
information which can be displayed on the small display screen of a
hand-held device is limited.
[0003] Although screen resolution is improving rapidly, the limited
area available for the screen will always provide a limitation to
the amount of information which can be simply displayed in small
hand-held or portable devices such as mobile telephones. Larger
amounts of data may be made available through the use of nested
menus and tree-structured data storage arrangements, but with a
small display available, the user may be faced with a requirement
to repeatedly select from the limited available displayed options
and wait while the next navigation level of the interface is
accessed in order to access even relatively close branches of a
data tree.
[0004] It is therefore an object of the present invention to
provide an improved electronic device.
[0005] According to the present invention, there is provided an
electronic device having a display and an image deflection system
overlying the display, wherein the display is controlled to provide
at least two independent display images which, when displayed
through the image deflection system, are individually visible from
different viewing positions relative to the display.
[0006] Owing to the invention, it is possible to provide a device
that can present a greater volume of useful data for a given
display size.
[0007] The electronic device of the invention has an image
deflection system overlying the display so that the device can
provide multiple views to the user, each view being visible from
different viewing positions.
[0008] The use of lenticular screens over display devices is well
known for providing autostereoscopic images to the user, and the
deflection system may comprise a lenticular screen. In
autostereoscopic devices, the lenticular screen provides viewing
positions for different images which are spaced by a distance
corresponding to the separation of human eyes. In this way,
different images are directed to the left and right eyes of the
user so as to generate the perception of a stereo image without
requiring the user to wear, for example, spectacles having
different coloured lenses.
[0009] To generate stereo images, the lenticles of the lenticular
screen extend from the top to bottom of the screen so that a
lateral shift of the viewing position relative to the screen
results in different images being visible.
[0010] The lenticles in the image deflection system of the
invention may extend across the display so that different images
are visible as a function of the angle of inclination of the viewer
with respect to the screen. In this way, a user may view the
different images by tilting the device about a horizontal axis.
[0011] Each lenticle may be associated with three or more display
images. For example, a first main image may be provided at a
natural position of the device with respect to the user. Tilting
the device one way may result in an image being displayed which
represents the previous screen of the user interface display.
Tilting the device in the other direction may provide explanation
regarding the options presented to the user at that time.
[0012] The display preferably comprises a pixel display, for
example a liquid crystal display, and the device may be a mobile
telephone or television, although other options will become
apparent to the skilled reader on reading the following description
of preferred embodiments.
[0013] Embodiments will now be described, by way of example only,
with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings, in
which:
[0014] FIG. 1 schematically represents a mobile telephone,
[0015] FIG. 2 shows how different images may be viewed from the
screen of the telephone of FIG. 1,
[0016] FIG. 3 is illustrative of output addressing for a display in
the telephone of FIGS. 1 and 2 giving rise to multiple images,
[0017] FIG. 4 is a schematic plan view of a television being viewed
by two people, and
[0018] FIG. 5 is a schematic plan view of a television being viewed
by a single person.
[0019] FIG. 1 shows a mobile telephone 10 having a display 12 and a
number of input buttons 14 as well as a microphone 16 and a speaker
18.
[0020] The display 12 comprises a pixel display, in the form of a
liquid crystal display, over which is provided an image deflection
system, in the form of a lenticular screen 8, of the type which has
previously been used in the creation of autostereoscopic LCD
displays. A display device of this type for use as an
autostereoscopic display is described in detail in the commonly
assigned EP-A-0 791 847, the disclosure of which is incorporated
herein by way of reference.
[0021] The display 12 is controlled to provide at least two
independent display images which, when displayed through the
lenticular screen 8, are individually visible from different
viewing positions relative to the screen 8.
[0022] In conventional autostereoscopic lenticular screen display
devices, the lenticles extend from top to bottom of the screen so
that different images are projected by the lenticular screen to
different lateral positions of the user with respect to the screen.
The present invention is applicable with this horizontal separation
of views although, as will be described below, vertical view
separation (through use of horizontally extending lenticles) is
equally possible.
[0023] As shown schematically in FIG. 1, lenticles 24 of the screen
8 overlying the display 12 extend across the display 12, so that
the multiple display images are visible at different elevations
with respect to the screen. Furthermore, horizontal alignment of
the lenticles results in the same image being displayed to the left
and right eyes of the user. Thus, the two or more images may be
viewed by tilting the mobile telephone 10 about a horizontal axis
20.
[0024] FIG. 2 shows how the telephone 10 may be tilted about this
horizontal axis 20. FIG. 2A shows a normal viewing position of the
mobile telephone 10 in which the user views the screen from a
location substantially normal to the plane of the screen. In this
position a menu of input options may be displayed to the user,
although in FIG. 2A the display image is indicated simply as "View
1".
[0025] In order to view a second image, the top of the phone may be
tilted towards the user, as represented in FIG. 2B. The image
displayed is represented as "View 2", and this may, for example,
provide a view of the previous screen so that the user is able to
recollect the path of options he has followed during the previous
input of data to the telephone 10. A third image, represented in
FIG. 2C as "View 3" may be obtained by tilting the mobile telephone
10 in an opposite direction. This screen may, for example, provide
help information about the normal screen, View 1.
[0026] The use of multiple independent display images enables the
small screen to provide additional information to the user, without
the need to press any buttons, thereby improving the clarity of the
user interface.
[0027] There are various additional ways in which the multiple
images may be used. For example, for a quiz game, a question may be
displayed as one image, and the answer may be displayed as another
image. For example, with applications accessed from the Internet,
the information obtained from the Internet may provide specific
control as to which data is to be displayed as each possible
image.
[0028] FIG. 3 shows in greater detail how the pixel display device
is addressed to provide the multiple views. Each pixel 22 is
represented as a square in FIG. 3, although each display position
may comprise a triplet of pixels for a colour display. Each
lenticle 24 overlies three rows of pixels 22 and all pixels having
the same relative position with respect to a lenticle 24 will be
visible to a user at the same time. Thus, in FIG. 3 the central row
of pixels may together form View 1, the top row of pixels with
respect to each lenticle 24 may provide View 2 and the bottom row
of pixels with respect to each lenticle 24 may provide View 3, as
illustrated.
[0029] Although the embodiment has been described specifically in
relation to a mobile telephone, it can be applied to other
hand-held or portable devices, such as remote controls,
calculators, wrist watches, PDA devices, pagers and multi-function
watches.
[0030] The display device may comprise an active matrix LCD device,
although passive LCD displays or other types of display, such as
polymer LED displays, may be used.
[0031] FIGS. 4 and 5 show a second embodiment in which a television
30 is provided with a display 12 and an image deflection system, in
the form of a lenticular screen 8, overlying the display 12. The
lenticles of the screen 8 are arranged in a vertical orientation to
provide independent display images that are individually visible
from different viewing positions.
[0032] In FIG. 4, two users 32 and 34 can view different images by
each aligning themselves with a pair of images displayed by the
display 12. The display 12 is controlled to provide four display
images, left and right eye views for two independent display
images. When displayed through the lenticular screen 8, two
different images are individually visible from the different
viewing positions of the users 32 and 34.
[0033] In FIG. 5, a single user 34 can locate himself such that by
making only a relatively small movement of his head, he can switch
between the two views displayed by the television 30.
[0034] The control of the device to provide the correct display
image, having regard to the lenticular screen overlying the
display, has not been described, as the methods for combining
multiple images and the drive schemes for driving the display
device will be known to those skilled in the art. Similarly, the
specific design of the lenticular screen and of the display device
itself will be known to those skilled in the art.
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