METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DATA MANAGEMENT IN AN ELECTRONIC PEN

摘要

A data management device in an electronic pen apparatus operates to receive (602) images of a product surface and extract (604) data from these images. The product surface may be provided with part of a position- coding pattern, and the extracted data may then represent positions encoded by the pattern. The device selectively processes the extracted data in an online process and an offline process. The selection (606) of process may be controlled by the pattern data in the images. The online process is operable to provide (614) the extracted data, sequentially and typically in near real time, on a communications interface of the pen apparatus. The offline process is operable to store (608) the extracted data in an internal storage (M) of the pen apparatus. The offline process is also operable to selectively provide (610) the extracted data in non-sequential order on the communications interface, by retrieving and collating extracted data originating from a specific part of the abstract position-coding pattern.