Driving methods for electrophoretic displays
View Patent ↗The driving system and methods of the present invention enable interruption of updating images. The system and methods have the advantage that they not only can speed up the updating process when more than one command is received consecutively in a short period of time, but also can provide a more smooth transition visually during the updating process.
1. A driving method for continuously updating multiple images utilizing waveform phase A which drives pixels of a first color to a second color and waveform phase B which drives pixels of the second color to the first color, wherein each of phase A and phase B has N frames, and the method comprises:
a) completing a first phase A to update a current image to a first intermediate state image, in response to an initial command to update the current image to a first next image, wherein a first group of pixels in the first color is driven to the second color in the first intermediate state image;
b) partially completing a first phase B at frame n to update to a transition image, in response to a second command to update to a second next image, which command is received in the first phase B, wherein a second group of pixels in the second color is driven to an intermediate color state between the first color and the second color, in the transition image during the partial first phase B;
c) starting a partial second phase A at frame (N−n+1), and completing the partial second phase A to update to a second intermediate state image, wherein the partial first phase B and the partial second phase A have the same number of frames, wherein the second group of pixels in the intermediate color state is driven to the second color in the second intermediate state image during the partial second phase A; and
d) completing a second phase B to update to the second next image, wherein a third group of pixels in the second color is driven to the first color in the second next image.
2. the of claim 1 , wherein in step (a), a display controller, in response to the initial command to update the current image to the first next image, compares the current image and the first next image, finds proper waveforms to update the current image to the first next image.
3. The of claim 1 , wherein in step (b), a display controller compares the first intermediate state image and the second next image, selects appropriate waveforms to update to the second next image.
4. The of claim 1 , wherein there is only one interrupting command which is received in phase B.
5. The of claim 1 , wherein there are more than one interrupting command received in phase B.
6. A driving method for continuously updating multiple images utilizing waveform phase A which drives pixels of a first color to a second color and waveform phase B which drives pixels of the second color to the first color, wherein each of phase A and phase B has N frames, and the method comprises:
a) completing a phase A to update a current image to a first intermediate state image, wherein a group of pixels in the first color is driven to the second color in the first intermediate state image;
b) partially completing a phase B at frame n to update to a transition image, in response to a subsequent command to update to a desired image, which command is received in the phase B, wherein a group of pixels in the second color is driven to an intermediate color state between the first color and the second color, in the transition image during the partial phase B;
c) starting a partial phase A at frame (N−n+1) to update to a subsequent intermediate state image, wherein the partial first phase B and the partial second phase A have the same number of frames, wherein a group of pixels in an intermediate color state is driven to the second color in the subsequent intermediate state image during the partial phase A; and
d) completing a phase B to update to the desired image according to the subsequent command, wherein a group of pixels in the second color is driven to the first color in the desired image.