SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PRIORITIZATION OF RENDERING POLICIES IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

• US 20100023406A1
• Filed: 07/24/2008
• Published: 01/28/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated (Kyndryl Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hamilton, Rick A. II, O'Connell, Brian M., Pickover, Clifford A., Bhogal, Kulvir S.
• Granted Patent: US 10,037,565 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.660
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

A system and method implemented in a computer infrastructure having computer executable code, includes receiving one or more bids for at least one of an enhanced rendering quality and an enhanced rendering order of an object in a virtual universe (VU) and performing a bid resolution for the received one or more bids. Additionally, the method includes rendering one or more objects in the VU with the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order based on the bid resolution.

Claims

1. A method implemented in a computer infrastructure having computer executable code, comprising:

receiving one or more bids for at least one of an enhanced rendering quality and an enhanced rendering order of one or more objects in a virtual universe (VU);

performing a bid resolution for the received one or more bids; and

rendering the one or more objects in the VU with the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order based on the bid resolution.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the one or more bids further comprises receiving for each bid:

an entity identifier;

a rendering order bid;

a rendering quality bid; and

an object UUID.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the receiving the one or more bids further comprises receiving one or more bid restrictions, wherein the one or more bid restrictions comprise at least one of:

a VU condition restriction;

a VU location restriction; and

a VU temporal restriction.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the received one or more bids in a bid database.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein performing the bid resolution comprises:

segmenting the one or more received bids based on a VU region of the one or more objects;

for one or more objects in a particular VU region, ranking the one or more received bids by their enhanced rendering order bid to determine the enhanced rendering order.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein performing the bid resolution further comprises:

for an object receiving a highest rendering quality bid, assigning an enhanced rendering quality attribute of one hundred percent;

for any objects receiving no rendering quality bid, assigning the enhanced rendering quality attribute of zero percent; and

for each remaining object, determining the enhanced rendering quality attribute as a ratio of the object rendering quality bid relative to the highest rendering quality bid.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein performing the bid resolution comprises:

segmenting the one or more received bids based on a VU region of the one or more objects;

for one or more objects in a particular VU region, assigning a rank to the one or more received bids indicating the enhanced rendering order, wherein the assigning the rank comprises;

for an object receiving a highest rendering order bid, assigning an enhanced rendering order rank of one;

for any objects receiving no rendering order bid, assigning an enhanced rendering order rank of zero; and

for each remaining object, determining the enhanced rendering order rank as a ratio of the object rendering order bid relative to the highest rendering order bid.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying an object definition of the one or more objects to indicate the at least one of the enhanced rendering order and the enhanced rendering quality.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the enhanced rendering quality comprises at least one of:

a polygon/triangle enhancement;

a frame rate enhancement; and

a texture/lighting enhancement.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the rendering of the one or more objects with enhanced rendering order further comprises at least one of serial rendering and parallel rendering.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising controlling and adjusting rendering start times for the one or more objects, so that an object with a higher-ranked rendering order enhancement is completely rendered before an object with a lower-ranked order enhancement is completely rendered.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a payment amount for the rendering of the one or more objects in the VU with the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order based on the bid resolution.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the bids is at least one of:

ongoing;

according to a pre-determined schedule; and

for a predetermined time period.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the one or more bids occurs at least one of:

within the VU; and

outside of the VU.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more objects is at least one of:

an avatar, a sign, a building, an advertisement, and a graphical depiction of an item for sale.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein a service provider at least one of creates, maintains, deploys and supports the computer infrastructure that performs the steps of claim 1.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein steps of claim 1 are provided by a service provider on a subscription, advertising, and/or fee basis.

18. A system, comprising:

a bid placement tool configured to receive one or more bids for at least one of an enhanced rendering quality and an enhanced rendering order of one or more objects in a virtual universe (VU);

a remuneration/billing tool configured to determine a cost to one or more requesters for the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order for the one or more objects; and

at least one of;

a bid resolution tool configured to determine the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order for one or more objects;

an object definition tool configured to modify the one or more objects'"'"' object definition to indicate the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order for the one or more objects; and

an enhanced rendering tool configured to render the one or more objects in the VU with the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the bid resolution tool is configured to determine the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order for the one or more objects by:

segmenting the one or more received bids based on a VU region of the one or more objects; and

for one or more objects in a particular VU region, ranking the one or more received bids by their enhanced rendering order bid to determine the enhanced rendering order.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the bid resolution tool is further configured to determine the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order for the one or more objects by:

assigning an enhanced rendering quality attribute of one hundred percent for an object receiving a highest rendering quality bid;

assigning the enhanced rendering quality attribute of zero percent for any objects receiving no rendering quality bid; and

for each remaining object, determining a respective enhanced rendering quality attribute as a ratio of the object rendering quality bid of a respective remaining object relative to the highest rendering quality bid.

21. The system of claim 18, comprising a computer infrastructure operable to implement the bid placement tool, the bid resolution tool, the object definition tool, the enhanced rendering tool and the remuneration/billing tool.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein a service provider at least one of creates, maintains, deploys and supports the computer infrastructure.

23. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having readable program code embodied in the medium, the computer program product includes at least one component to:

receive one or more bids for at least one of an enhanced rendering quality and an enhanced rendering order of one or more objects in a virtual universe (VU);

determine the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order for the one or more objects;

modify the one or more objects'"'"' object definition to indicate the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order for the one or more objects;

render the one or more objects in the VU with the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order; and

determine a cost to one or more requesters for the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order for the one or more objects.

24. A method comprising:

providing a computer infrastructure operable to;

receive one or more bids for at least one of an enhanced rendering quality and an enhanced rendering order of an object in a virtual universe (VU);

perform a bid resolution for the received one or more bids; and

render one or more objects in the VU with the at least one of the enhanced rendering quality and the enhanced rendering order based on the bid resolution.