Spatial rendering of a message

• US 10,219,092 B2
• Filed: 11/21/2017
• Issued: 02/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/23/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Laaksonen, Lasse, Vilermo, Miikka, Tammi, Mikko, Lehtiniemi, Arto
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoang, Peter
• Application Number:
  US15/819,237
• Publication Number:
  US 20180146316A1
• Time in Patent Office: 462 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/20 Editing of 3D images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2004 Aligning objects, relative positioning of parts
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2016 Rotation, translation, scaling
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 1/403 loud-speakers
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 27/00 Public address systems circuits for preventing acoustic reaction H04R3/02; circuits for distributing signals to loudspeakers H04R3/12; monitoring or testing arrangements for public address systems H04R29/007; amplifiers H03F
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 5/00 Pseudo-stereo systems, e.g. in which additional channel signals are derived from monophonic signals by means of phase shifting, time delay or reverberation

Abstract

A method comprising: causing targeting of a message to a first sub-set of users that receive messages, wherein the message is not targeted to a second sub-set of users that receive messages; and causing different spatial rendering of the message to the first sub-set of users compared to the second sub-set of users.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

determining that a message comprising audio and/or visual content, from a first user in a virtual three-dimensional space, is targeted to a first sub-set of users in the virtual three-dimensional space, wherein the message is not targeted to a second sub-set of users in the virtual three-dimensional space;

determining a first audio and/or visual object and a second audio and/or visual object, wherein the first audio and/or visual object comprises the audio and/or visual content of the message and one or more first values for one or more first spatial rendering parameters, and the second audio and/or visual object comprises the audio and/or visual content of the message and one or more second values for one or more second spatial rendering parameters;

causing the first audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the first sub-set of users based on the first values such that the audio and/or visual content is rendered at a first position in the virtual three-dimensional space; and

causing the second audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the second sub-set of users based on the one or more second values such that the audio and/or visual content is rendered at a different, second position in the virtual three-dimensional space.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one of:

the audio and/or visual content comprises audio content to be rendered within a sound space of the virtual three-dimensional space based on the respective first audio and/or visual object and the second audio and/or visual object; and

the audio and/or visual content comprises visual content to be rendered within a visual space of the virtual three-dimensional space based on the respective first audio and/or visual object and the second audio and/or visual object.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one of the first values and at least one of the second values are different values for a same spatial rendering parameter, wherein the same spatial rendering parameter corresponds to at least one of:

two-dimensional orientation, elevation, distance and spatial extent.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the message is caused to be targeted to the first sub-set of users by the first user who has composed the message.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein causing the first audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the first sub-set of users and the second audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the second sub-set of users provides indirect selective communication to the users via the first values and the second values, separate to any content of the message.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein rendering of the first audio and/or visual object to the first sub-set of users indicates to the first sub-set of users that the message is targeted to them.

7. A method as claimed in claim 6, wherein rendering of the second audio and/or visual object to the second sub-set of users does not indicate to the second sub-set of users that the message is not targeted to them.

8. A method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the second position is at a default position and wherein the first position is not at the default position.

9. A method as claimed in claim 6, wherein, rendering of the first audio and/or visual object changes the rendering for the first sub-set of users from rendering the audio and/or visual content at a default position to rendering the audio and/or visual content at a non-default position.

10. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein rendering of the first audio and/or visual object to the first sub-set of users does not indicate to the first sub-set of users that the message is targeted to them and wherein rendering of the second audio and/or visual object to the second sub-set of users does indicate to the second sub-set of users that the message is not targeted to them.

11. A method as claimed in claim 10, wherein rendering of the second audio and/or visual object to the second sub-set of users indicates to the second sub-set of users that the message is targeted to the first sub-set of users and provides an indication of the members of the first sub-set of users.

12. A method as claimed in claim 10, wherein spatial rendering of the first audio object to the first sub-set of users renders the audio and/or visual content of the message at a default position and wherein spatial rendering of the second audio and/or visual object to the second sub-set of users renders the audio and/or visual content of the message at a non-default position.

13. A method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

causing disambiguation of the message from other simultaneously rendered messages by preventing overlapping of the message and the other messages in space and time by providing at least a minimum spatial separation between simultaneously rendered messages in the virtual three-dimensional space.

14. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the second position corresponds to a position of the first user in the virtual three-dimensional space, and wherein the first position is closer than the second position to a position in the virtual three-dimensional space of at least one of the users in the first sub-set.

15. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first position corresponds to a position of the first user in the virtual three-dimensional space, and wherein the second position corresponds to a position of at least one of the users in the second sub-set.

16. An apparatus comprising

at least one processor;

and

at least one memory including computer program code;

the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform;

determining that a message comprising audio and/or visual content, from a first user in a virtual three-dimensional space, is targeted to a first sub-set of users in the virtual three-dimensional space, wherein the message is not targeted to a second sub-set of users in the virtual three-dimensional space;

determining a first audio and/or visual object and a second audio and/or visual object, wherein the first audio and/or visual object comprises the audio and/or visual content of the message and one or more first values for one or more first spatial rendering parameters, and the second audio and/or visual object comprises the audio and/or visual content of the message and one or more second values for one or more second spatial rendering parameters;

causing the first audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the first sub-set of users based on the first values such that the audio and/or visual content is rendered at a first position in the virtual three-dimensional space; and

causing the second audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the second sub-set of users based on the one or more second values such that the audio and/or visual content is rendered at a different, second position in the virtual three-dimensional space.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein at least one of:

the audio and/or visual content comprises audio content to be rendered within a sound space of the virtual three-dimensional space based on the respective first audio and/or visual object and the second audio and/or visual object; and

the audio and/or visual content comprises, visual content to be rendered within a visual space of the virtual three-dimensional space based on the respective first audio and/or visual object and the second audio and/or visual object.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein at least one of the first values and at least one of the second values are different values for a same spatial rendering parameter, wherein the same spatial rendering parameter corresponds to at least one of:

two-dimensional orientation, elevation, distance and spatial extent.

19. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein causing the first audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the first sub-set of users and the second audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the second sub-set of users provides indirect selective communication to the users via the first values and the second values, separate to any content of the message.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer program code stored thereon, the computer readable medium and computer program code being configured to, when run on at least one processor, perform at least the following:

determining that a message comprising audio and/or visual content, from a first user in a virtual three-dimensional space, is targeted to a first sub-set of users in the virtual three-dimensional space, wherein the message is not targeted to a second sub-set of users in the virtual three-dimensional space;

determining a first audio and/or visual object and a second audio and/or visual object, wherein the first audio and/or visual object comprises the audio and/or visual content of the message and one or more first values for one or more first spatial rendering parameters, and the second audio and/or visual, object comprises the audio and/or visual content of the message and one or more second values for one or more second spatial rendering parameters;

causing the first audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the first sub-set of users based on the first values such that the audio and/or visual content is rendered at a first position in the virtual three-dimensional space; and

causing the second audio and/or visual object to be rendered to the second sub-set of users based on the one or more second values such that the audio and/or visual content is rendered at a different, second position in the virtual three-dimensional space.