DISCRETE OBJECTS FOR BUILDING VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

• US 20100138793A1
• Filed: 12/02/2008
• Published: 06/03/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Finch, Mark T., Cheng, Lili, MacLaurin, Matthew B., Anderson, Eric S., Coy, Stephen B.
• Application Number:
  US12/326,113
• Publication Number:
  US 20100138793A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/849
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04815 Interaction with a metaphor-based environment or interaction object displayed as three-dimensional, e.g. changing the user viewpoint with respect to the environment or object
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04845 for image manipulation, e.g. dragging, rotation, expansion or change of colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/05 Geographic models
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/10 Constructive solid geometry [CSG] using solid primitives, e.g. cylinders, cubes
• 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 2200/24 involving graphical user interfaces [GUIs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2004 Aligning objects, relative positioning of parts
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2008 Assembling, disassembling
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2016 Rotation, translation, scaling
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2219/2021 Shape modification

Abstract

Described is a virtual environment built by drawing stacks of three-dimensional objects (e.g., discrete blocks) as manipulated by a user. A user manipulates one or more objects, resulting in stack heights being changed, e.g., by adding, removing or moving objects to/from stacks. The stack heights are maintained as sample points, e.g., each point indexed by its associated horizontal location. A graphics processor expands height-related information into visible objects or stacks of objects by computing the vertices for each stack to draw that stack'"'"'s top surface, front surface and/or side surface based upon the height-related information for that stack. Height information for neighboring stacks may be associated with the sample point, whereby a stack is only drawn to where it is occluded by a neighboring stack, that is, by computing the lower vertices for a surface according to the height of a neighboring stack where appropriate.

Claims

1. In a computing machine that generates output representing a computer-simulated environment, a method comprising, receiving user interaction corresponding to an object being manipulated in the computer-simulated environment, communicating data to graphics hardware, the data corresponding to height-related information of the object as a result of the manipulation, and rendering graphics based on the height-related information to output an updated representation of the computer-simulated environment as a result of the user interaction.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the user interaction comprises receiving manipulation instructions to add the object at a horizontal location associated with the computer-simulated environment, and further comprising, increasing height-related information corresponding to that location to account for the object being added.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the user interaction comprises receiving manipulation instructions to delete the object from a horizontal location associated with the computer-simulated environment, and further comprising, decreasing height-related information corresponding to that location to account for the object being deleted.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the user interaction comprises receiving manipulation instructions to move the object from a first horizontal location associated with the computer-simulated environment to a second horizontal location, and further comprising, decreasing first height-related information corresponding to the first location and increasing second height-related information corresponding to the second location to account for the object being moved.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising, computing vertices for a top surface of the object to be rendered based upon the height-related information.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising, providing a user interface tool by which user interaction manipulates of a plurality of objects.

6. The method of claim comprising, computing vertices for a front or side surface to be rendered based upon the height-related information.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein computing the vertices for the front or side surface comprises, determining the vertices based upon height-related information of at least one neighboring location.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein computing the vertices for a front or side surface to be rendered based upon the height-related information comprises determining the vertices according to a current base height.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising, changing the current base height to provide a new base height corresponding to another level.

11. In a computing machine that generates output representing a computer-simulated environment, a system comprising, a mechanism including a user interface by which a user stacks a representation of an object at a horizontal location, the object stacked at the horizontal location upon a base surface or upon one or more other objects or fractional parts of objects, the mechanism communicating height-related information of the object to graphics hardware that renders the object at a vertical position that corresponds to the height-related information.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the object is added upon a stack of one or more other objects, and further comprising, rendering the stack to include the object and at least part of the stack below the object.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein the system determines the horizontal location from an index associated with the height-related information.

14. The system of claim 11 wherein the data corresponding to the height-related information of an object comprises a set of data indexed by a horizontal location, the set of data including the height-related information including an object height and one or more neighboring heights, and wherein the rendering mechanism draws a side surface by computing a set of vertices that is determined at least in part by the one or more of the neighboring heights.

15. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform steps, comprising:

receiving a stream of height-related information at a graphics processor, the stream corresponding to stack heights at various horizontal locations of a virtual environment, and

for each horizontal location, processing the height-related information to render a stack at that horizontal location with a stack height determined from the height-related information.

16. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 15 having further computer-executable instructions comprising, receiving user input that varies the height of a stack by adding an object to a stack or deleting an object from a stack.

17. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 15 wherein processing the height-related information comprises determining the horizontal location from an index associated with the height-related information.

18. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 15 wherein processing the height-related information comprises expanding the height-related information into a conceptual stack of at least one object, including drawing a top surface of each stack by computing vertices based upon the height-related information corresponding to that stack.

19. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 15 wherein processing the height-related information comprises expanding the height-related information into a conceptual stack of at least one object, including drawing a front surface or a side surface of each stack, or both a front surface and a side surface, by computing vertices based upon the height-related information corresponding to that stack.

20. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 19 computing the vertices comprises determining lower vertices based upon height-related information corresponding to one or more neighboring stacks.