AUGMENTED REALITY AND FILTERING

• US 20090167787A1
• Filed: 12/28/2007
• Published: 07/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Multerer, Boyd Cannon, Bathiche, Steven N., MacLaurin, Matthew B., O'Rourke, Bret P., Russell, Zachary Lewis, Wilfrid, Eric P., Alkove, James M., Miller, John Mark, Whitten, Jon Marcus Randall, Roup, Oliver R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,264,505 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/633
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/52 involving aspects of the displayed game scene
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/65 automatically by game devices or servers from real world data, e.g. measurement in live racing competition
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/6009 for importing or creating game content, e.g. authoring tools during game development, adapting content to different platforms, use of a scripting language to create content
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/69 Involving elements of the real world in the game world, e.g. measurement in live races, real video
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/006 Mixed reality object pose determination, tracking or camera calibration for mixed reality G06T7/00

Abstract

A system (and corresponding method) that can enhance a user experience by augmenting real-world experiences with virtual world data to is provided. The augmented reality system discloses various techniques to personalize real-world experiences by overlaying or interspersing virtual capabilities (and data) with real world situations. The innovation can also filter, rank, modify or ignore virtual-world information based upon a particular real-world class, user identity or context.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates augmenting reality, comprising:

an information gather component that aggregates data based upon a real-world experience as a function of context-related information; and

an interface component that establishes an augmented-reality experience in real-time based upon the aggregated information;

wherein the augmented-reality experience overlays real-world data with virtual-world data.

2. The system of claim 1, the aggregated data includes virtual data related to a plurality of objects viewed by a user.

3. The system of claim 2, the aggregated data includes contextual data related to a subset of the plurality of objects.

4. The system of claim 3, the contextual data includes one of activity context data, user context data or environment context data.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a reality monitor component that employs a sensor component to gather the context-related information.

6. The system of claim 5, the sensor component is at least one of an environmental or physiological sensor.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a query component that establishes a query based upon a subset of the context-related information, wherein the query enables access to the virtual-world data.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a consolidation component that merges a subset of the real-world data with a subset of the virtual-world data.

9. The system of claim 8, further comprising:

an analysis component that analyzes the real-world data and the virtual-world data; and

an aggregation component that combines the real-world data with a subset of the virtual-world data based upon contextual data.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a rendering component that personalizes the augmented-reality experience based upon one of user preference, user policy or context.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a configuration component that organizes the augmented-reality experience based upon at least one of user preference, user policy, or user context.

12. The system of claim 10, further comprising a filter component that filters virtual data for inclusion within the augmented-reality experience based upon at least one of user preference, user policy, or user context.

13. The system of claim 1, further comprising a machine learning and reasoning component that employs at least one of a probabilistic and a statistical-based analysis that infers an action that a user desires to be automatically performed.

14. A computer-implemented method of augmenting reality, comprising:

monitoring a plurality of real-world objects;

gathering virtual information related to a subset of the plurality of real-world objects; and

augmenting reality via aggregating the virtual information with the subset of the plurality of real-world objects.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising rendering the augmented reality to a user based upon one of a context, policy or preference.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the context is at least one of activity context, user context or environment context.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

filtering the augmented reality based upon a context; and

rendering the filtered augmented reality.

18. A computer-executable system comprising:

means for monitoring contextual objects related to a user;

means for aggregating virtual objects with a subset of the contextual objects; and

means for rendering the aggregation to a user.

19. The computer-executable system of claim 18, further comprising means for gathering the virtual objects.

20. The computer-executable system of claim 19, further comprising means for inferring a preference of the user, wherein the preference is employed by the means for rendering the aggregation.