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Safety for wearable virtual reality devices via object detection and tracking

  • US 10,475,249 B2
  • Filed: 08/03/2018
  • Issued: 11/12/2019
  • Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2014
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method of detecting a physical object during a virtual reality experience, the method including:

  • using at least one camera in connection with a wearable virtual reality device to capture a sequence of images of a real world environment near a user wearing the device;

    using features in some images of the sequence of images to track proximity of at least one physical object near the user, including;

    at a first time t0, using a sensor, sensing a first position for at least one physical object in a first reference frame of the real world environment;

    causing display of a first virtual representation of the physical object at the first position, wherein the first virtual representation is rendered in a virtual environment of the device; and

    at a second time t1, responsive to repositioning of the real world environment and the sensor due to body movement of the user, sensing, in the real world environment, a second position of the physical object and at least some portions of the physical object that appear different from the first position; and

    causing display of a second virtual representation of the physical object at an actual second position, including;

    sensing motion of the wearable virtual reality device and calculating a second reference frame that accounts for repositioning of the device;

    calculating a transformation that renders the first position in the first reference frame and the second position in the second reference frame into a common reference frame; and

    transforming the first position and the second position of the physical object into the common reference frame, wherein the common reference frame has a fixed point of reference and an initial orientation of axes, whereby a sensed second position is transformed to the actual second position; and

    responsive to detecting that either one of the wearable virtual reality device and the physical object is approaching the other, automatically generating an alert to be injected into a virtual reality experience of the user.

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