JP2728005B2 - pointing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a pointing device, and more particularly, to moving a pointer displayed on a screen of a display device used in a computer on the screen to generate a desired line or graphic. The present invention relates to a pointing device for executing a predetermined command by designating a specific area on a display screen.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as an input device of a computer,
Various pointing devices are used with the keyboard. The pointing device inputs commands and data to the computer by moving the hand or wrist with respect to the input from the character-based keyboard.In particular, when inputting data from the keyboard, such as when creating graphic data, It is an indispensable input device if you cannot.

[0003] A typical pointing device is a mouse. Recently, in addition to handling graphics, etc., an icon or the like displayed on the screen of a display device without inputting a command to be input to a computer from a keyboard is used. It is used for selecting with a mouse and thereby executing a predetermined program.

The pointing device has been variously improved in order to enhance operability. For example,
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-55622, the height of the main body of the mouse is adjusted so that the operability is improved.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-65710 discloses a computer display device provided with a driving means for changing its direction, and a mouse provided with a driving means for changing the direction of the display device. A button for sending a command to change the mouse is provided so that the movement of the mouse is matched with the movement of the cursor displayed on the screen of the display device to improve the operability. Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-18610 discloses a technique in which a moving distance from an origin arbitrarily set to a mouse can be displayed separately in the X and Y directions.

Further, Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open Publication No. 63-27938 discloses an operation body provided with an operation switch for a ball and a housing housing a rotation amount detecting means of the ball. A displaceably mounted input device is described. In addition to such a mouse-type pointing device, for example, a trackball-type device which operates by rotating a ball with a finger as described in JP-A-61-79923 or JP-A-3-100938 is disclosed. Things have also been devised.

[0007]

As described above, the conventional pointing device moves a cursor or pointer displayed on a screen of a display device to a predetermined position or designates a predetermined area on the screen. Then, it can be said that executing a program has a sufficient function, but there is a disadvantage that operability is poor when drawing or drawing.

That is, in the mouse-type pointing device, the mouse is moved by the rotational movement of the upper arm with the shoulder joint as the axis, the rotational movement with the elbow joint as the axis, and the rotational movement of the hand. However, in operations such as drawing, the trajectory must be delicately controlled, and a mouse cannot use the movement of the wrist and the fine movement of the index finger and thumb, as in the case of drawing with a pen or pencil. For this reason, in the above-described conventional example, it is difficult to perform fine drawing and drawing.

In the above-described pointing device of the trackball type in which the ball is operated by rotating the ball with the finger, fine movement is possible by the movement of the fingertip.
Since the moving distance of the cursor or pointer on the display screen which moves by one finger movement is small, there is a disadvantage that operability is poor when drawing a continuous long line or the like.

In addition to the above-mentioned pointing devices, there is a type that imitates the operation of a conventional writing instrument such as a pen or a pencil, and that is input on a tablet using a pen-type pointing device. . However, such a pen-type device can only be input on a tablet, and requires an operation of holding and holding a pen-type pointing device for each input. When the input by the pointing device is repeated alternately, the work flow is interrupted, and there is a disadvantage that the work efficiency is reduced.

[0011]

The object of the present invention is to improve the inconvenience of the prior art, and particularly to perform drawing and drawing on a display screen of a computer, it is possible to control fine movements with a fingertip, and to perform the same operation as a normal mouse. It is an object of the present invention to provide a pointing device capable of performing a large motion quickly and performing an input operation efficiently without interrupting a work flow even when an input is alternately performed with a keyboard.

[0012]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a rotatably supported ball partially exposed below the bottom surface and a signal corresponding to the amount of rotation of the ball are converted into two-directional components. A housing having a built-in rotation amount detecting means for separately outputting and an operation switch for outputting an operation signal is provided. The housing is composed of an upper housing and a lower housing, and is connected to the operation switch on the upper surface of the upper housing. Pointing device equipped with an operating button
A predetermined recess is formed on the upper surface of the
The operation button is located on
Up to a continuous formation .

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the lower housing is formed of a disc.
And the center of the bottom of the lower housing
A hole for supporting the ball at the center of the lower housing.
Is set so that it is recessed inward from the periphery, and the lower end of the ball
It is supported in a state where it is separated from the mounting surface of the lower housing and the upper
The lower housing is elastically deformed by pushing the upper surface of the housing downward.
To make the ball touch the mounting surface
Other configurations are the same as those of the first aspect.
is there.

[0014]

[0015]

This aims to achieve the above-mentioned object.

[0017]

The pointing device of the present invention is used by placing it on a horizontal mounting surface like a normal mouse.
The operator inserts his finger into the recess provided in the housing,
The belly of the inserted finger faces the operation button. In this state, the direction of the housing of the pointing device is determined by the finger inserted into the concave portion. And
When the finger is inserted into the concave part of the housing of the pointing device and moves, the ball on the bottom of the housing is rotated by friction with the mounting surface, and the rotation amount and the rotation direction are determined by the rotation amount detecting means as in a normal mouse. Is detected, the signal is input to the computer and displayed on the screen of the computer display, and the position of the cursor or pointer moves in response to the movement of the pointing device.

Further, by finely moving the operator's finger inserted into the concave portion of the casing of the pointing device, the cursor or pointer displayed on the screen of the display can be finely moved.

When the operation button is pressed with a finger inserted in the recess, an operation switch built in the pointing device is operated, and an operation signal is output to the computer. And in the housing of the pointing device,
When one recess is provided, the housing is small,
Since it can be lightened, a delicate operation can be performed with the movement of one finger.

[0020]

In the case where the bottom surface of the housing is formed so as to be depressed from the center and the lower end of the ball is supported separately from the mounting surface of the housing, the finger is simply inserted into the recess of the housing to move the pointing device. The movement of the pointing device by itself does not reflect the movement of the cursor or pointer displayed on the display screen.The cursor moves on the display screen only when the housing is moved with the finger pressed against the mounting surface. Or, the pointer moves.

[0022]

[0023]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the appearance of a pointing device according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view thereof. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the casing of the pointing device is composed of a cylindrical upper casing 1 having an inverted U-shaped cross section and a disc-shaped lower casing 2 forming a bottom surface. The upper housing 1 is formed with a concave portion 8 for accommodating a finger, the upper surface and a part of a peripheral surface of which are cut away, and operation buttons 3 and 4 are provided at the bottom of the concave portion 8. Have been.

The operation buttons 3 and 4 are respectively linked to switches (not shown in FIG. 2) provided below the operation buttons, and when the operation button 3 or the operation button 4 is depressed with a finger, an operation signal is generated. Is output to a computer (not shown). Further, the above-mentioned concave portion 8 is formed in a shape in which the outline of one fingertip fits, and the pad of the finger is located on the upper surface of each of the operation buttons 3 and 4 at the position where the fingertip is put in the concave portion 8. It has become.

In this embodiment, the upper housing 1 and the lower housing 2 constituting the housing of the pointing device have a diameter of not less than 20 [mm] and not more than 35 [mm] and a height of 25 [m].
m], and has a shape that can be operated with one finger. Here, the concave portion 8 may have a contour shape that can accommodate two fingertips side by side, and when two fingers are accommodated in the concave portion 8, the belly of each finger may be located on the upper surface of each operation button. .

The lower housing 2 is formed of a disc which can be elastically deformed. An engagement ridge 7 for locking the lower housing 2 to the inner peripheral edge at the lower end of the above-described upper housing 1 is provided at a position closer to the center than the upper peripheral edge of the lower housing 2.
Are provided in an annular shape. A ball 5 is disposed at the center of the lower housing 2, and the ball 5 is supported by a peripheral portion of a hole 6 formed at the center of the lower housing 2. A part of the lower end side of the ball 5 is
And is exposed below.

A roller (not shown) fixed to the shaft 9A and the shaft 10A is in contact with the ball 5, and the ball 5
Is transmitted to the shaft 9A and the shaft 10A via the rollers. This shaft 9A and shaft 10A
Are rotatably supported by the lower housing 2 in directions orthogonal to each other (X-axis direction, Y-axis direction). Slit disks 9 and 10 are provided on each of the shafts 9A and 10A, and the slit disks 9 and 10 are fixed by an X-axis slit sensor 16 and a Y-axis slit sensor 17 fixed to the lower housing 2 side. Are detected.

FIG. 3 is a circuit block diagram of the signal processing system of the pointing device described above. In FIG. 3, a left switch 13 and a right switch 14 as operation switches are provided below the operation buttons 3 and 4, respectively.
A signal corresponding to the operation of No. 4 is input from each of the switches 13 and 14 to the signal / coordinate conversion circuit 21. Also, this signal /
A signal generated by the X-axis slit sensor 16 and the Y-axis slit sensor 17, that is, a signal corresponding to the rotation of the ball 5 is input to the coordinate conversion circuit 21.

The signal / coordinate conversion circuit 21 converts a signal input from each of the slit sensors 16 and 17 into an integral multiple of a distance and a coordinate unit, and an input signal from each of the switches 13 and 14 (switch-on signal). And converts it into a coordinate specifying signal. The signal output from the signal / coordinate conversion circuit 21 is divided into a parallel / serial conversion circuit 22 and a wired / wireless conversion circuit 2.
3 to the computer. The parallel / serial conversion circuit 22 is unnecessary when sending signals to the computer in parallel. In addition, the wired / wireless conversion circuit 23
Is necessary when the output signal of the pointing device is wirelessly transmitted to the computer, and is unnecessary when the signal is transmitted to the computer by wire.

Here, the left switch 13 and the right switch 14
Means that one seesaw-type switch may be used instead of two independent switches. In addition, each switch 1
The operation buttons 3 and 4 provided corresponding to 3 and 14 may also be formed in a seesaw type that tilts left and right about the center portion, and may be configured as a single component.

FIG. 4 is a schematic sectional view showing a state in which the pointing device of this embodiment is mounted on the mounting surface 20 such as a desk. In this case, no force is applied to the lower housing 2 in the case of FIG. 4, and the peripheral edge thereof is located at a position lower than the hole 6 supporting the ball 5 as shown in FIG. ing. In this state, the lower end of the ball 5 is
The ball 5 does not rotate even when the pointing device is moved without touching the ball 5. FIG. 5 shows a state in which a finger is placed on the concave portion 8 of the upper housing 1 and the housing is lightly pressed against the mounting surface 20. In this state, the peripheral edge of the lower housing 2 is pressed by the mounting surface, the lower housing 2 is elastically deformed and its bottom surface is flattened, the position of the hole 6 is lowered, and the ball 5 contacts the mounting surface 7. It is in a state where it has been done. When the pointing device is moved in this state, the ball 5 rotates due to friction with the mounting surface 20, and the rotation of the ball 5 is transmitted to the shafts 9A and 10A via rollers (not shown). The rotation of each of the shafts 9A and 10A is transmitted to the slit discs 9 and 10, and the respective rotations are decomposed in the X-axis and Y-axis directions by the slit sensors 16 and 17 and output to the computer side.

[0033]

[0034]

[0035]

[0036]

Here, in each of the above embodiments, the entire central portion of the bottom surface of the housing is formed by the disc-shaped lower housing 2 recessed from the peripheral edge, and the lower end of the ball is supported in a state separated from the mounting surface of the housing. Then, the case where the lower housing 2 is elastically deformed by pressing the upper surface of the housing downward, so that the ball 5 comes into contact with the mounting surface has been exemplified, but the housing bottom surface is a flat surface. The ball may be configured to initially contact the floor.

Further, in each of the above-described embodiments, two operation buttons are provided. However, a mode in which only one operation button is provided may be implemented. In this case, one operation switch is provided corresponding to the operation button .

[0039]

As described above, according to the pointing device of the present invention, the finger is inserted into the recess provided in the housing and the finger is moved, so that the orientation of the pointing device is determined by the orientation of the fingertip, and the delicate fingertip Operation can be reflected in the movement of the cursor or pointer displayed on the computer display, and therefore drawing and drawing on the display screen, which were difficult with the It can be done easily.

When the cursor or pointer is largely moved on the screen, the movement of the shoulder or elbow joint causes
The pointing device can be moved much like a normal mouse. In addition, the concave portion for accommodating the operator's finger has a shape in which a part of the upper surface and the peripheral surface of the housing is cut out, and the operation buttons are arranged at the bottom of the concave portion, so that input is alternately performed with the keyboard. , The input work can be continued efficiently without interruption of the work flow.

Further, when the pointing device is provided with one concave portion having a shape adapted to the contour of the fingertip in the housing, the pointing device can be formed compactly and can be easily operated with only one fingertip. it can.

[0042]

Further, if the lower end of the ball is configured to be in contact with the mounting surface only when the housing of the pointing device is pressed against the mounting surface, the finger is simply inserted into the concave portion of the housing. If you do not move the pointing device while pressing it against the mounting surface, the movement of the pointing device will not be reflected on the movement of the cursor or pointer displayed on the display screen. Even when the user touches the pointing device, the position of the cursor or pointer displayed on the screen of the display does not move.

[0044]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view schematically showing the internal structure of the embodiment in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a circuit block diagram showing an example of a signal processing system in the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing the ball non-grounded state of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a sectional view showing a ball grounding state of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing another embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view showing still another embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Upper housing 2 Lower housing 3, 4 Operation button 5 Ball 6 Hole 7 Engagement ridge 8 Depression 11 Partition wall 13 Left switch as an operation switch 14 Right switch as an operation switch 20 Mounting surface

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A rotatably supported ball partially exposed downward from a bottom surface, a rotation amount detecting means for outputting a signal corresponding to the rotation amount of the ball in two directions, and outputting the signal.
An operation switch for outputting an operation signal is provided. The housing includes an upper housing and a lower housing, and an operation button connected to the operation switch is provided on an upper surface of the upper housing. In the pointing device, when a predetermined concave portion is formed at one place on the upper surface of the upper housing ,
An operation button is arranged in this concave portion, and the concave portion is formed continuously from a part of the upper housing to a peripheral surface.
A pointing device, characterized in that: 2. The pointing device according to claim 1,
In the chair, the lower housing is formed of a disc-shaped member, and
A hole for supporting the ball is provided at the center of the bottom surface of the lower housing;
The state where the center of the lower housing is recessed inward from the peripheral edge
The lower end of the ball is set from the mounting surface of the lower housing
It is supported in a spaced state, and the upper surface of the upper housing is
The lower housing is elastically deformed by pressing
A poi characterized by being configured to contact a mounting surface.
Printing device.