Patent ID: 7746327
Filing Date: 2010-06-29
Classification: G01C,G06F

Abstract:
1. A remote-control switch electrically coupled to a display unit for displaying an image controlled by a control means on a monitor with a touch-sensitive panel, said touch-sensitive panel allowing a user to touch switch images thereon with a user's finger to operate said touch-sensitive panel comprising: an input panel arranged with a plurality of switches on its plane, said input panel, which is made up separately from said display unit, is mounted on a car-interior front console, including an XY coordinate detection operating unit and a Z coordinate detection operating unit, said XY coordinate detection operating unit detecting a position, on said input panel, on which a selective operation has been performed by using two-dimensional plane coordinate when the selective operation has been performed by making a finger contact with and slide on said input panel, while said Z coordinate detection operating unit detecting the pressing strength applied on said two-dimensional plane coordinate and then determining the selective operation when pressing strength larger than predetermined strength is applied from an upper side to said input panel, wherein an image plane coordinate of said display unit and each switch coordinate of said input panel substantially correspond to each other, and said switch image corresponding to said each switch is displayed on said display unit by means of said control means, and then when the selective operation has been performed, a central position of a contact region in contact with said user's finger is detected, and based on this detection result, a selected region which corresponds to said contact region and is not displayed is determined on the image plane of said display unit; when only one switch image overlaps said selected region at the time of the selective operation, said only one switch image which has overlapped said selected region is allowed to change in display from a standard color to another color to be permitted to stand out from other switch images not overlapping said selected region so that it is displayed on said image plane that said one switch has been selected via said input panel, even when a plurality of said switch images overlap said selected region at the time of the selective operation, all of the plurality of said switch images that simultaneously overlap said selected region are allowed to change simultaneously in display from a standard color to another color to be permitted to stand out from other switch images so that it is displayed on said image plane that the plurality of said switch images have been selected simultaneously via said input panel, the color change of said switch images displayed on said display unit allows the user to recognize a position of said user's finger on said input panel at the time of the selective operation performed by the user sliding his or her finger on said input panel prior to determining said switch images displayed on said display unit, and when said Z coordinate detection operating unit detects the pressing strength applied on said two-dimensional plane coordinate with a plurality of said switch images overlapping said selected region and all of the plurality of said switch images being changed from said standard color to another color, a space between the plurality of said switch images whose color has changed from said standard color to another color is widened, and the plurality of said switch images whose space is widened are displayed on said display unit, thus allowing only one of said switch images to be overlapped in said selected region.