CONFIGURED VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

• US 20130342564A1
• Filed: 06/25/2012
• Published: 12/26/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Kinnebrew, Peter Tobias, Kamuda, Nicholas Ferianc
• Granted Patent: US 9,645,394 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/619
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 2027/014 comprising information/image processing systems
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 2027/0178 Eyeglass type eyeglass details G02C
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 27/017 Head mounted
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/011 Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality blind teaching G09B21/00
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/04 Display device controller operating with a plurality of display units
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/06 Use of more than one graphics processor to process data before displaying to one or more screens
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/121 using a cache memory
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/022 Centralised management of display operation, e.g. in a server instead of locally
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/16 Use of wireless transmission of display information
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/003 to produce spatial visual effects

Abstract

A display apparatus and method for creating and displaying configured virtual environments based on real world source environments. A mixed reality environment includes real and virtual objects, and a set of one or more virtual objects may be associated with a source environment and stored as a configured environment for later rendering by the display apparatus. Configured environments may be associated with users, environments or locations.

Claims

1. A method of creating a customized virtual environment, comprising;

determining a source physical environment including one or more real world features of the source physical environment;

creating an environment definition of the source environment;

associating one or more virtual objects with the environment definition;

defining one or more allowable rendering environments; and

storing the one or more virtual objects associated with the environment definition and the allowable rendering environments.

2. The method of claim 1 further including the step of receiving a request to render environment definition and rendering the environment definition.

3. The method of claim 1 further including creating multiple sets of one or more virtual objects based on a source environment.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of associating includes receiving a user selection of the one or more virtual objects for the source environment.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein rendering environment may be independent of the source environment.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the method includes providing multiple sets of one or more virtual objects associated with a source environment.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the method includes providing multiple sets of one or more virtual objects associated with a rendering environment.

8. The method of claim 1 further including sharing the one or more virtual objects, the environment definition and the allowable rendering environment.

9. A see-through head mounted display apparatus, comprising:

a see-through, near-eye, augmented reality display;

one or more processing devices in wireless communication with apparatus, the one or more processing devices determine a physical, source environment, creating an environment definition of the source environment, receive a selection of one or more virtual objects for rendering in the source environment, and store the one or more virtual objects with the environment definition and allowable rendering environments; and

the one or more processing devices rendering the one or more virtual objects and environment definition when in an allowable rendering environments.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the one or more processing devices store multiple sets of one or more virtual objects in a memory of the apparatus.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the one or more processing devices store multiple sets of one or more virtual objects associated with a source environment.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the one or more processing devices store multiple sets of one or more virtual objects associated with a rendering environment.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the one or more processing devices share the one or more virtual objects, the environment definition and the allowable rendering environment.

14. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the one or more processing devices monitor user interaction with the one or more virtual objects and environment and store a modified set of the one or more virtual objects and environment definition.

15. A method of rendering holographic virtual objects in a see through head mounted display system, comprising:

determining a physical rendering environment including one or more real world features of the physical rendering environment;

retrieving a configured virtual environment, the configured virtual environment including one or more virtual objects defined with respect to a physical, source environment, and including a source environment definition;

determining a rendering of the configured environment in the rendering environment; and

rendering the configured environment in an rendering environment.

16. The method of claim 15 including retrieving a configured virtual environment from a plurality of stored configured environments.

17. The method of claim 15 including retrieving a shared configured environment.

18. The method of claim 15 wherein each configured environment is associated with a user, a source environment, a rendering environment or a location.

19. The method of claim 15 wherein said rendering includes obscuring real objects in the rendering environment with one or more virtual objects in the configured environment.

20. The method of claim 15 wherein the step of retrieving includes retrieving from a service providing a plurality of configured environments, each configured environment associated with a rendering environment.