MEASURING METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE POSITION OF AN OBJECT IN FRONT OF A SCREEN AND A DEVICE FOR CARRYING OUT SAID METHOD

摘要

The invention relates to a measuring method, which is primarily used for determining the head position of a user of a display at a computer work station ("head tracking"). A method known in prior art constructs two light barriers, using two permanently emitted parallel infra-red lobes of light, which delimit the permitted residence zone on both sides and only allow a yes/no statement about the position of the object. However, in order to obtain an absolute statement about the current head position with a high degree of accuracy, without placing a physiological stress on the user, the inventive measuring method is provided with a large number N of emission locations (EL) along a virtual line (VL), said locations emitting cyclic short infra-red light pulses (IRP) in sequence. This generates an infra-red light beam, which continually scans the occupied space (OA). A preferably identical number M of measuring locations (ML) is used to measure the current intensity profile by a weighted recording of the infra-red light pulses (IRPR) reflected by the object surface (OS), in order to calculate the centroid (OP) as a relevant position parameter (po). The inventive device is preferably configured as a compact sensor line (SL) with alternately integrated infra-red light sources (IRL) and phototransistors (PT).