Patent ID: 8164574

Claim:
An input operation system for use in a vehicle comprising: a touch panel that senses a touching finger of a user; an imaging unit that images the touch panel; an outline extraction unit that extracts an outline image of the touching finger of the user based on an image of the touch panel; an image generation unit that generates a composite image by superposing the outline image of the touching finger extracted by the outline extraction unit on a switch operation screen; a display control unit that displays the composite image generated by the image generation unit representation on a display panel; an operation detection unit that detects whether the touching finger of the user is in an in-contact condition or an out-of-contact condition with a vehicular device that controls vehicular equipment, the vehicular equipment being a steering wheel, the operation detection unit being disposed on the steering wheel; a lamp control unit that lights a lamp for increasing lighting of the touch panel to a predetermined brightness to notify the user of a location of the touch panel, when the operation detection unit detects an out of contact condition with the vehicular device that controls vehicular equipment for a period of time greater than a preset first lapse time; and a panel control detection unit that detects whether the user is in an in-contact condition or an out-of-contact condition with the touch panel by the touching finger of the user, wherein the lamp control unit continually increases the brightness of the lamp when a second lapse time has passed after lighting the lamp with the predetermined brightness without detection of the in-contact condition of the touching finger of the user with the touch panel by the panel control detection unit, the lamp control unit extinguishes the lamp when a third lapse time has passed after lighting the lamp with the predetermined brightness without a detection of the in-contact condition of the touching finger with the touch panel by the panel control detection unit, the third lapse time is longer than the second lapse time, the lamp control unit changes the brightness of the lamp to the predetermined brightness when the in-contact condition of the touching finger is detected by the panel control detection unit after increasing the brightness of the lamp, the lamp control unit extinguishes the lamp when both of a first condition and a second condition is detected, the first condition is defined as detection of the out-of-contact condition of the touching finger of the user with the touch panel by the panel control detection unit after detection of the in-contact condition of the touching finger of the user with the touch panel by the panel control detection unit, and the second condition is defined as a detection of the in-contact condition of the touching finger with the vehicular equipment by the operation detection unit.