1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer input system and, more particularly, to a computer input system which utilizes a camera to sense the light generated by a movable pen device as the point source.
2. Description of Related Art
In addition to using the keyboard for input operation, a personal computer is generally provided with a mouse as a pointing input device for entering commands or data. By detecting the relative position of the mouse and executing the corresponding driver software, the mouse cursor on the computer can be moved and input operation can be achieved by clicking the button of the mouse. Moreover, with the use of recognition software, a hand-written input application can be performed. As such, the use of the computer is even easier.
However, the use of the conventional pointing input device is not satisfactory. For example, the connection cable of the mouse is susceptible to tangling, and the mouse can only be operated on a mouse pad or a flat surface. Furthermore, the use of a mouse for the hand-written input application is deemed inconvenient.
Recently, due to the progress of multimedia applications, an audio/video device, such as a camera, has been provided on a computer. However, the camera may become a redundant device is the computer is used simply for a typical word processing applications. Therefore, it becomes an important issue to promote the convenience of using the pointing input device and fully utilize the resources of the computer.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a computer input system utilizing a camera to sense a point source, such that the user can conveniently perform the pointing input operation and hand-written input operation.
To achieve the above object, the computer input system in accordance with the present invention includes a movable light emitting device and a camera connected to a computer. The movable light emitting device is provided to be operated for moving and emitting at least two lights with different colors. The camera is provided for capturing the light emitted by the movable light emitting device, distinguishing the color of the light, and transforming a captured light trace produced by the movable light emitting device to XY coordinate data, so as to perform a pointing input operation to the computer.