JP2000235352A - Display device and game device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable plural users to share one display and to make changeover to a display state meeting the kinds of, for example, games by properly changing over a mode to share the entire surface on the display, a mode of making the specific region of the display visible only in a certain direction, etc., according to conditions. SOLUTION: The surface of the display screen of the display 1 is provided with a transparent coordinate input plate for detecting coordinates and is provided with a transparent film sheet 8 between this coordinate input plate 2 and the display screen of the display. The surface of the film sheet 8 is provided with display visual field control films 14 to 17 narrow in visible directivity for, for example, a card game, etc., so that each other's card cannot be seen. The presence or absence, positions, size, number of pieces, etc., of these visual field control films are changed over by the kinds of the games. The users are able to make the games corresponding to the desired film sheets by transporting the desired film sheets wound to a roll form.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a display device and a game device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A device for supporting a meeting with a small number of people or a horizontally arranged display as an input / output device for a game and an electronic device capable of inputting through a surface thereof have been devised.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Japanese Patent Application No. 06-5981.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 3 (1993) -143, a plurality of electronic pens are connected as input devices of a workstation having a horizontally arranged display device, and a plurality of conference participants change the display direction of the window to their desired viewing direction with their own electronic pens. Something that can be done is proposed. However, such techniques originally involve sharing the displayed information among a plurality of persons, and cannot take personal notes that are not desired to be shown to other attendees.

Further, in the prior art disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 06-19452, a liquid crystal display with a touch sensor provided on the upper surface of a table board is suitable for input / output for a table as suitable for input / output for games. An input / output device provided with: However, in this technique, the display must be tilted toward each user in order to prevent other players from showing his or her hand, and in this case, the number of displays becomes multiple, so the mechanism is complicated. Cost increases.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and aims to provide a display device in which one display can be shared by a plurality of users.

In another invention, a mode in which the entire surface of the display is shared, a mode in which a specific area of the display can be viewed only in a certain direction, and the like are appropriately switched according to the situation, for example, a display state corresponding to a type of game. It is an object of the present invention to provide a display device and an amusement device which are switched to each other.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, for example, a display device of the present invention has the following arrangement. That is, a display device comprising a display device, and a means for detecting the specified position when a desired position on the display screen of the display device is specified, the display device, on the display screen, from a specific direction It is characterized in that a plurality of areas in which only display contents are visible are provided.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of an amusement apparatus (reference numeral 3 shown) in the embodiment. As shown in the figure, the amusement device of the embodiment has a normal table shape, and a display 1 having a wide viewing angle is provided over substantially the entire surface of the table. A transparent coordinate input plate 2 is provided on the upper surface of the display 1, and detects a coordinate position specified by the input pens 4 to 7. A switch that operates when the coordinate input plate is pressed is provided at the tip of the input pen, and an on / off signal is supplied to a control unit (not shown in FIG. 1). In addition, as long as it is for detecting pen input, a push button or the like provided beside the pen may be used, and the structure of the input pen is not limited. Also, various coordinate input methods have been already proposed, and among them, any method may be used as long as it is provided on the front of the display and does not block the display image. However, in the embodiment, all the members (four in the figure) operate the input pens, and therefore a means for identifying them is required. As a coordinate input method that satisfies this, for example, there is a light pen or the like, but it is not limited thereto.
It is also simple if one pen is used instead. Further, a transparent film sheet 8 (described later) is provided between the display 1 and the coordinate input plate 2.

Reference numeral 11 denotes a control panel, on which various operations can be performed (details will be described later). Also, 1
Reference numerals 4 to 17 denote visibility control films provided on the film sheet 8, each defining an area in which an image displayed on the display 2 is displayed only in one of four directions surrounding the table. (Details will be described later).

FIG. 2 is a top view (partially shown) of the apparatus, and FIG. 3 is a cross section.

As shown in the figure, a film sheet 8 is wound around rollers 9 and 10. By driving a motor for rotating the rollers 9 and 10, the required film sheet 8 is placed on a coordinate input plate 3 and a display. 1 can be interposed.

For example, the rollers 9 and 10 have, for example, FIG.
As shown in the figure, there are a plurality of patterns (a pattern A in which a visibility control film is not provided and a pattern B in which four of them are provided). Input pattern 8
Can be located directly below.

The pattern A is used in a mode in which an image displayed on the entire surface of the display 1 is shared, and the pattern B is used in a mode in which one's hand such as a playing card (card) is not shown to the other party. Used for

Although only two patterns are shown in the drawing, it is desirable that the width of a game such as mahjong be larger than the shape of the visibility control film of the pattern B, so that it is provided as a third pattern. What is necessary is just to provide the number according to the nature of the game. Also, 4
In the case of a game of two players instead of a game by a person, a layout of the visual control film corresponding to the game may be provided.

Next, the visibility control films 14 to 17 provided on the film sheet 8 will be described. The view control film diffuses light from a specific direction so that it becomes opaque when viewed from that direction. In the case of the present embodiment, the section taken along the line CC ′ and the line DD ′ in FIG.
The cross section is shown in FIG. 4. The transparent and opaque directions are as shown in FIGS. 5 (a) and 5 (b), respectively.

Next, the operation when this embodiment is used will be described with reference to FIG. In the figure, 18 to 21 are users. By operating the changeover switch on the control panel 11, the motor driver is operated, and the pattern A of FIG.
Switch to make them overlap. Specifically, by specifying a game program to be operated, a sheet pattern matching the specified game program is arranged on the display 1 so as to overlap.

When the pattern A portion is overlapped on the display 1, since the entire display screen is a transparent sheet, the display 1 can be seen by any user as shown in FIG. . Meanwhile, control panel 1
When the switch 1 is operated so that the portion B of the film sheet 8 overlaps the display 1, a state as shown in FIG. 6B is obtained. By the visibility control shown in FIG. 4, only the user 18 can see the portion where the visibility control sheet 14 is attached, and cannot see it from other users. Similarly, only the users 19 to 21 can see the respective areas where the visibility control sheets 15 to 17 are attached. That is, in the display area of the display 1 where the visibility control film is stuck, only the respective users can see the contents.

The simplest configuration of the visibility control sheets 14 to 17 is, for example, as shown in FIG. 9, a triangular mountain having a fine cross section formed of a transparent member, and a mountain that can be seen from the left-hand direction in the figure. Is provided with a black mask on the slope so that it can be seen only from the right hand.

Next, FIG. 7 shows an electronic block diagram of the device in the embodiment, which will be described.

In the figure, reference numeral 101 denotes a CP which controls the entire apparatus.
U is a ROM that stores basic operation processing procedures (programs) of the CPU 101, fonts, and the like. Reference numeral 103 denotes a RAM used as a work area of the CPU 101, and reference numeral 104 denotes a program ROM that stores various game programs. This program RO
The number of programs stored in M104 and the number of patterns provided on the film sheet 8 do not need to match. For example, there may be a plurality of programs used in the pattern A shown in FIG. 4, and there may be a plurality of programs used in the pattern B. However, it is necessary that each program is associated with a film sheet to be used (this correspondence is also stored at a predetermined address in the program ROM).

Next, the operation procedure (ROM
The program stored in 102 will be described with reference to FIG.

First, at step 1, one of the game programs is designated from the operation panel 11. Next, it is determined which pattern of the film sheet 8 corresponding to the designated game program is to be used, and the motor driver is controlled so that the pattern is located directly below the coordinate input plate 3.
When the preparation for executing the selected program is completed, the process proceeds to step 3, where the selected program is executed and the game is started. When the game program ends, the process returns to step 1.

Although the description has been made assuming that the game program is selected from the operation panel 11, a program list may be displayed at the center of the display, and the target program may be executed by designating with the input pen. .

As described above, according to the present embodiment,
With a single display, an area where the display content can be confirmed only in a specific direction is provided, and the number, position, size, shape, and the presence or absence of the area can be switched. It is possible to perform a display suitable for a game.

Further, in the embodiment, the description has been made assuming that the game program is provided inside the apparatus. However, a large number of patterns provided on the film sheet 8 are prepared in advance, and the game program is formed into a cartridge. If it is made detachable, it can be adapted to various games.

Although the embodiment has been described as an amusement device, the present invention is not limited to this, but may be applied to a conference or the like, and the present invention is not limited to its use.

Although the embodiment has been described as a single device, for example, a display image is supplied from a general-purpose information processing device (for example, a personal computer).
The detected coordinate data and the pressed state of the input pen may be notified to the information processing apparatus. Even in this case, it is desirable that the conveyance of the film sheet and the selection of the program be linked, so that the information processing apparatus stores the correspondence between the various programs and the pattern information of the film sheet used by each program, It is desirable that, when a program is selected, the apparatus be notified of information for designating a film sheet to be conveyed.

It should be noted that when a program is selected, the pattern of the film sheet to be used is automatically determined. However, a mode that does not interlock can be specified from the operation panel 11, and the film sheet to be used can be freely selected. You may be able to. This is because, for example, when teaching beginners the contents of a game, it is more convenient to display the entire display.

Although not particularly described in the above embodiment, it is desirable that the display 1 has a wide viewing angle because of its characteristics, and a thin display device is required to have a structure as shown in FIG. Is desirable. In this sense, a display having an electron source using a surface conduction electron-emitting device proposed by the present applicant is desirable. Reason,
This is because, like a CRT or the like, an external light source is not required, a viewing angle is as wide as a CRT, a display surface is flat, and a thin device can be obtained.

Although the input pen has been mainly described for use in games, it may be used for writing characters, and the present invention is not limited by its use.

Further, all or a part of the display control, the conveyance control of the film sheet, the coordinate detection and the like described in the embodiment may be performed by a general-purpose information processing apparatus.
The present invention can be realized by loading a program into an information processing apparatus.

Accordingly, a storage medium storing program codes of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments is supplied to a system or an apparatus (for example, a personal computer), and the computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or the apparatus supplies the storage medium. This can also be achieved by reading and executing the program code stored in the storage medium.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM, CD
-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS and the like running on the computer are actually executed based on the instructions of the program code. It goes without saying that a part or all of the above-described processing is performed, and the functions of the embodiments are realized by the processing.

[0037]

As described above, according to the present invention, 1
A single display can be shared by multiple users. Further, depending on the situation, it is possible to appropriately switch between a mode in which the entire surface of the display is shared, a mode in which a specific area of the display can be viewed only in a certain direction, and the like, for example, a display state corresponding to a type of game.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic external view of an apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the apparatus according to the embodiment as viewed from above.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional configuration diagram of the device of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a detailed view of a film sheet used in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an operation of a visibility control film in the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a use situation of the device of the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is an electronic block diagram of the device according to the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an operation processing procedure in the embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a specific structure of a visibility control film in the embodiment.

Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Yukio Masuda 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo F-term in Canon Inc. (reference) 2C001 AA00 AA12 AA13 AA14 BA00 BA04 BB00 BB08 BC00 BC10 CA00 CA09 CB01 CC00 CC02 CC06 5B087 AA00 AE00 CC12 CC15 CC26 5G435 AA00 BB01 GG17 HH02 LL00 9A001 HH34 JJ76 KK45 KK62

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A display device comprising: a display device; and, when a desired position on a display screen of the display device is designated, means for detecting the designated position. A display device comprising: a plurality of regions in which display contents are visible only from a specific direction. 2. The display device according to claim 1, further comprising switching means for switching to a mode in which the entire surface of the display screen is visible from all directions. 3. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a plurality of modes having different positions, sizes, and numbers of said areas, and comprising means for selecting any one of the modes. The display device according to claim 1. 4. The display device has a table shape,
The display device according to claim 1, further comprising a display screen of the display device facing an upper part of the table. 5. A selected game program comprising: a plurality of game programs; a display device; and means for detecting a specified position on a display screen of the display device when the desired position is specified. A game device that performs processing according to the detected position, wherein the layout of a visible control area for visually displaying only the display content of the display screen of the display device in a specific direction is the game program. An amusement device characterized in that the game device is switched in accordance with the game. 6. The game device according to claim 5, wherein the layout of the visible control area includes a position, a size, a size, and a number of the visible control area.