Patent Document

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
   This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/889,782, entitled Apparatus, system and method of importing data arranged in a table on an electronic whiteboard into a spreadsheet, filed on even date herewith and assigned to the common assignee of this application, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference. 
   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   1. Technical Field 
   The present invention is directed to electronic whiteboards. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an improved electronic whiteboard. 
   2. Description of Related Art 
   Whiteboards have been steadily replacing blackboards/chalkboards. A whiteboard is a white laminate display panel on which a user may write. Generally, a user writes on a whiteboard using a pen containing quickly drying ink that can easily be erased. Thus, like a chalkboard, a whiteboard may be used indefinitely. 
   With the advent and ubiquity of computers, it was inevitable that whiteboards and computers would be combined together. A whiteboard combined with a computer is referred to as an electronic whiteboard. An electronic whiteboard digitally records images and/or text written thereon to be later printed out, reviewed, and/or transmitted. The digitally recorded images and/or text, however, is in the form of a bitmap image rather than in computer-readable code (e.g., ASCII code). Further, if the images and/or text is arranged in a table or chart on the electronic whiteboard, grid cells of the table or chart may not be machine-detectable. 
   Hence, what is needed is an improved electronic whiteboard with machine-detectable grid cells. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention provides an improved electronic whiteboard. The improved electronic whiteboard includes a plurality of toggle switches along a vertical side for drawing or marking horizontal straight lines across the electronic whiteboard and a plurality of toggle switches along a horizontal side for drawing or marking vertical straight lines across the electronic whiteboard. When some or all the switches along the vertical side are turned on, horizontal straight lines are drawn or marked across the electronic whiteboard. Likewise, when some or all the switches along the horizontal side are turned on, vertical straight lines are drawn or marked across the electronic whiteboard. Sets of intersections of the vertical straight lines with the horizontal straight lines form a plurality of grid cells. The electronic whiteboard contains means for determining the location of these cells. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     The novel features believed characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, as well as a preferred mode of use, further objectives and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein: 
       FIG. 1  depicts an exemplary whiteboard of the present invention. 
       FIG. 2  depicts the exemplary whiteboard of  FIG. 1  with activated lasers. 
       FIG. 3  depicts the exemplary whiteboard of  FIG. 2  with information-filled cells. 
       FIG. 4  is a block diagram showing the primary components of the electronic whiteboard system of the present invention. 
       FIG. 5  depicts the exemplary whiteboard of  FIG. 3  connected to a computer system. 
       FIG. 6  is a flowchart of a process that may be used for downloading content on a whiteboard onto a computer system. 
       FIG. 7  is a flowchart of a process that may be used when content of a whiteboard is downloaded to a computer system. 
       FIG. 8  depicts a block diagram illustrating a data processing system in which the present invention may be implemented. 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
   The present invention provides an apparatus, system and method of improving an electronic whiteboard. The invention or part thereof may reside on any data storage medium (i.e., floppy disk, compact disk, hard disk, ROM, RAM, etc.) used by a computer system. 
   The electronic whiteboard of the present invention may utilize optical technology (e.g., laser, infrared or LED technology) to create grid lines in order to facilitate table or chart data entry. Particularly, the electronic whiteboard may include two surfaces between which a chamber containing a gaseous substance (such as carbon dioxide) with light-reflecting particles may be located. Note that although carbon dioxide may be used, the invention is not thus restricted. Any other gas or substance may be used so long as light may be reflected therefrom. 
   Toggle switches that may turn on/off adjacent lasers, for example, may be located along a vertical side and a horizontal side of the whiteboard. The vertical and horizontal lasers (or laser apparatus) may be mounted on a movable platform that moves or slides along the corresponding axis, and allows for placement of the laser beam at desired locations. When a laser is activated, the light from the laser may become visible as a straight line when reflected off the particles in the gas. Hence, by activating proper lasers at the vertical and horizontal edges of the whiteboard, a user may construct an appropriate grid into which information may be entered. 
   Alternatively, a user, using a pen, may draw a set of intersecting vertical and horizontal lines on the whiteboard to form a grid. Before inserting any data into any one of the grid cells, the user may instruct the electronic whiteboard to scan in the grid cells. After doing so, the platform may be moved in a position such that each laser beam from the platform corresponds to a pen drawn line on the electronic whiteboard. 
   With reference now to the figures,  FIG. 1  depicts an exemplary whiteboard of the present invention. The whiteboard contains a column of buttons along vertical edge  105  and a row of buttons along horizontal edge  110 . The buttons are used to activate adjacent lasers. That is, when a button is depressed, a laser adjacent to the button is turned on and emits a light that appears as a straight line across the whiteboard. The depressed button may also be lit to indicate that the laser is on or the button is depressed. This is shown in  FIG. 2 . 
     FIG. 2  depicts the exemplary whiteboard of  FIG. 1  with activated lasers. In the figure, buttons  115  along vertical edge  105  and buttons  120  along horizontal edge  110  are highlighted indicating that adjacent lasers placed thereby are activated. Further, straight lines (see the dotted lines) corresponding each to a highlighted button are visible across the whiteboard. These straight lines form a grid of cells within which information may be entered. 
     FIG. 3  depicts the exemplary whiteboard of  FIG. 2  with information-filled cells. The information may be filled in by a user using a common white-board writing instrument. 
     FIG. 4  is a block diagram showing primary components of an electronic whiteboard system of the present invention. The electronic whiteboard system consists of a digitizer  400  that includes writing surface  405 . Connected to digitizer  400  is controller  410  which includes RAM  415 , ROM  420  and whiteboard electronics  425 . Whiteboard electronics  425  is used to locate XY coordinates of markings on writing surface  405 . Further, whiteboard electronics  425  keeps track of the toggle switches that are turned on or off, and if the light emitters are mounted on movable plates, the position of the light emitters. ROM  420  is used to store an executable or configuration file that may be used to properly control the whiteboard and RAM  415  is used to store data from the digitizer  400 . 
     FIG. 5  depicts the exemplary whiteboard of  FIG. 3  connected to a computer system. The connection may be through a Universal Serial Bus (USB) or through a firewire adapter or through a Bluetooth adapter. Note that the invention is not restricted to only those technologies. Any other technology that may facilitate communication between any two or more computing devices, data download or upload from one system to another etc. may be used. 
   In operation, a user may enter information into the cells of the grid formed by the intersecting light emitters. After the information is entered, the user may download the information into computer system  510  by asserting button  530 . When button  530  is asserted, the controller  410  of  FIG. 4  may enable the digitizer  400  to scan in the information on the whiteboard surface  405 . In one embodiment, the information may be scanned in real-time without having to assert button  530 . Note that scanning information from a whiteboard into a computer is well known in the art and will not be explained. 
   As the digitizer is scanning the whiteboard surface  405 , the XY coordinates of the cells may be recorded and stored in RAM  415 . Further, the XY coordinates of each marking on the whiteboard may also be recorded and stored in RAM  415 . This will enable the computer system  510  to determine the cells in which each marking was located on the whiteboard surface  405 . All this information may be downloaded to the computer system  510 . 
   Upon receiving the information, the computer system  510  may use an optical character recognition (OCR) program to convert bitmap images into computer-readable code. After doing so, the information (i.e., the XY coordinates of the cells, the XY coordinates of the converted characters as well as the converted characters) may be stored on the computer system  510  for later use. 
   In some instances, the information on the whiteboard surface  405  may be imported directly into a computer-based spreadsheet  515  such as Lotus 123 (a product of IBM Corp.) or Microsoft Excel (a product of Microsoft Corp.), for example. In those instances, the location of the cursor (i.e., the highlighted cell) in the spreadsheet may be used as a reference point to determine where the data in the left-most/upper-most cell on the whiteboard surface  405  will be inserted in the spreadsheet  515 . For example, based on the location of the word “platform” in the spreadsheet  515 , the upper-most/left-most cell of the spreadsheet was the highlighted cell. Note that if the information on the whiteboard surface  405  were to be downloaded once more, the information in the upper-most/left-most cell on the whiteboard surface  405  would be imported into highlighted cell  520  of the spreadsheet  515 . The rest of the data will be downloaded and inserted into adjacent cells as determined from the point of reference. 
   Consequently, the present invention allows a user to download data onto spreadsheet cells, where the current spreadsheet cell is logically mapped to data on a cell on the whiteboard, and additional spreadsheet cells that are not mapped on the electronic whiteboard can be inserted through multiple downloads (the location of the spreadsheet current cell may be automatically adjusted after every download). After each download, the user may erase the information on the electronic whiteboard and enter new information data thereon. When the information is to be downloaded, the user may move the cursor to the cell in the spreadsheet that is to correspond with the information in the left-most, top-most cell on the electronic whiteboard. After doing so, the user may assert button  530  to download the information. 
     FIG. 6  is a flowchart of a process that may be used for downloading content on a whiteboard onto a computer system. The process starts when a user asserts downloading button  530  (steps  600  and  602 ). The content of the whiteboard is then scanned. While scanning the content, the XY coordinates of the cells, any markings on the whiteboard as well as the coordinates of the markings on the whiteboard will be recorded (steps  604  and  606 ). Once this is done, the recorded information will be downloaded (step  608 ) and the process will end (step  610 ). 
     FIG. 7  is a flowchart of a process that may be used when content of a whiteboard is downloaded to a computer system. The process starts when the whiteboard attempts to download data to the computer system (step  700 ). Then a check is made to determine if the data is being downloaded (step  702 ). If so, the computer system will accordingly receive the data. The downloaded data, as mentioned above, represents a bitmap image of all makings on the whiteboard. Consequently, the data may be converted into machine-readable code using an OCR program and the converted data will be stored for later use (steps  704 ,  706 ,  708 ). If the data is to be downloaded directly into a spreadsheet as when a spreadsheet is displayed on the computer system, the position of the cursor in the spreadsheet will be used as a point of reference. That is, the cell in which the cursor is located will be used to correspond to the left-most/upper-most cell of the whiteboard. The rest of the data will be displayed in appropriate cells and the process will end (steps  710 ,  712 ,  714  and  716 ). 
   With reference now to  FIG. 8 , a block diagram illustrating a data processing system in which the present invention may be implemented is depicted. Data processing system  800  employs a PCI local bus architecture. Although the depicted example employs a PCI bus, other bus architectures such as Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) and Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) may be used. Processor  802  and main memory  804  are connected to PCI local bus  806  through PCI bridge  808 . PCI bridge  808  also may include an integrated memory controller and cache memory for processor  802 . Additional connections to PCI local bus  806  may be made through direct component interconnection or through add-in boards. For example, a USB board or a firewire board may be added to the system in order to implement the present invention. 
   Note that in the depicted example, LAN adapter  810 , small computer system interface (SCSI) host bus adapter  812 , and expansion bus interface  814  are connected to PCI local bus  806  by direct component connection. In contrast, audio adapter  816 , graphics adapter  818 , and audio/video adapter  819  are connected to PCI local bus  806  by add-in boards inserted into expansion slots. Expansion bus interface  814  provides a connection for a keyboard and mouse adapter  820 , modem  822 , and additional memory  824 . SCSI host bus adapter  812  provides a connection for hard disk drive  826 , tape drive  828 , and digital video disk/compact disk (DVD/CD) drive  830 . Typical PCI local bus implementations will support three or four PCI expansion slots or add-in connectors. 
   An operating system runs on processor  802  and is used to coordinate and provide control of various components within data processing system  800  in  FIG. 8 . The operating system may be a commercially available operating system, such as Windows XP, which is available from Microsoft Corporation. An object oriented programming environment such as Java may run in conjunction with the operating system and provide calls to the operating system from Java programs or applications executing on data processing system  800 . “Java” is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Instructions for the operating system, the object-oriented programming environment, and applications or programs are located on storage devices, such as hard disk drive  826 , and may be loaded into main memory  804  for execution by processor  802 . 
   Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the hardware in  FIG. 8  may vary depending on the implementation. Other internal hardware or peripheral devices, such as flash read-only-memory (ROM) (or equivalent nonvolatile memory) or optical disk drives and the like, may be used in addition to or in place of the hardware depicted in  FIG. 8 . Also, the processes of the present invention may be applied to a multiprocessor data processing system. 
   As another example, data processing system  800  may be a stand-alone system configured to be bootable without relying on some type of network communication interface, whether or not data processing system  800  comprises some type of network communication interface. As a further example, data processing system  800  may be a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) device, which is configured with ROM and/or flash ROM in order to provide non-volatile memory for storing operating system files and/or user-generated data. 
   The depicted example in  FIG. 8  and above-described examples are not meant to imply architectural limitations. For example, data processing system  800  may also be a notebook computer or hand held computer in addition to taking the form of a PDA. Data processing system  800  also may be a kiosk or a Web appliance. 
   The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, and is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention, the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.

Technology Category: 3