Differential resource application in virtual worlds based on payment and account options

• US 10,275,119 B2
• Filed: 01/26/2017
• Issued: 04/30/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated (Kyndryl Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hamilton, II, Rick A., Harrison, Steven M., O'Connell, Brian M., Pickover, Clifford A., Walker, Keith R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Xiao, Ke
• Assistant Examiner(s): Imperial, Jed-Justin
• Application Number:
  US15/415,930
• Publication Number:
  US 20170131860A1
• Time in Patent Office: 824 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/22 Payment schemes or models
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/005 General purpose rendering architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/006 Mixed reality object pose determination, tracking or camera calibration for mixed reality G06T7/00
• 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 2200/16 involving adaptation to the client's capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/24 involving graphical user interfaces [GUIs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/36 Level of detail
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/00 Image enhancement or restoration

Abstract

A system and method for enhancing the rendering of one or more objects based on payment and account options. The system includes a computer infrastructure configured to control enhancement rendering of an object in a virtual universe by providing at least one augmentation attribute to a tag of the object. The method includes providing enhancement rendering of an object in a virtual universe by augmenting the object based on a status of a user viewing the object.

Claims

1. A method for controlling display of an object on a display device comprising:

determining whether one or more levels of enhancement rendering on the display device is to be applied to the object displayed on the display device;

obtaining instructions describing the one or more levels of the enhancement rendering of the object;

determining a status of a user;

providing one or more levels of the enhancement rendering of the object in a virtual universe by augmenting the display of the object on the display device based on the status of the user viewing the object, the status of the user being related to one or more actions taken by the user within the virtual universe;

permitting the user to access a context menu prior to obtaining the instructions describing the one or more levels of the enhancement rendering of the object;

determining whether the object has the possibility of being enhanced with more than one level of enhancement of at least one of refresh rate, to have a faster refresh rate than a standard refresh rate, and level of bit color of the object, to have a higher level of bit color than a standard level of bit color, prior to determining whether the one or more levels of enhancement rendering on the display device is to be applied to the object displayed on the display device; and

maintaining a standard rendering, regarding the at least one of refresh rate and the level of bit color of the object, to the user if it is determined that the object cannot be enhanced,

wherein the augmenting the object on the display device includes at least one of increasing the refresh rate to have a faster refresh rate than the standard refresh rate, and increasing the level of bit color of the object to have a higher level of bit color than the standard level of bit color, and

wherein the determining includes determining whether the object has the possibility of being enhanced with regard to both the refresh rate and the level of bit color of the object, and

further comprising determining whether the object has the possibility of being enhanced with more than one type of shading, and, based on the determining of the possibility of being enhanced with more than one type of shading, augmenting the object on the display device with one of possible enhanced shadings.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying the object when the user accesses another level of the one or more levels of the enhancement rendering.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising adjusting computational resources to accommodate for utilization of the augmenting.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the augmenting the object on the display device further includes a rendering method; and

the status of the user comprises how many interactions the user has had in the virtual universe within a predetermined time period and how much money the user has spent in the virtual universe.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising allowing one or more users temporary access to an augmentation attribute which provides the one or more levels of the enhancement rendering.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether an augmentation attribute associated with the one or more levels of the enhancement rendering is required to be sent to the user.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising allowing the user to change status after determining the status of the user and prior to determining whether the augmentation attribute associated with the one or more levels of the enhancement rendering is required to be sent to the user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of claim 1 are implemented on a computer infrastructure maintained, deployed, created and supported by a service provider on one of a fee and/or subscription basis.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether the user chooses an enhancement rendering from the context menu prior to obtaining the instructions describing the one or more levels of the enhancement rendering of the object.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising determining whether object modification is necessary after obtaining the instructions describing the one or more levels of the enhancement rendering of the object and prior to determining the status of the user.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising allowing the user to change status after determining the status of the user and prior to providing the one or more levels of the enhancement rendering of the object in the virtual universe.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising using a tag interpreter to view metadata of the object to determine the total number of levels of enhancement that are available for the object.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether the object has more than one level of enhancement by a tag interpreter.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining whether the object has more than one level of enhancement via a pointer.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising providing the user with access to the context menu which presents the user with a selectable mechanism to request enhancement rendering when it is determined that more than one level of enhancement exists for the object.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the context menu is configured to allow the user to request the enhancement rendering at a remote location from a virtual universe server.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether the object has the possibility of the refresh rate being enhanced to have the faster refresh rate than the standard refresh rate, and augmenting the object on the display device by increasing the refresh rate to the faster refresh rate that the standard refresh rate.