Method And System For Transmitting Virtual Reality (VR) Content

• US 20180359189A1
• Filed: 06/08/2017
• Published: 12/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: YE, Yinghua, SHI, Hang, DAI, Huida
• Granted Patent: US 10,477,105 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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: G06T 15/20 Perspective computation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/756 adapting media to device capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/131 Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/117 the virtual viewpoint locations being selected by the viewers or determined by viewer tracking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/194 Transmission of image signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/376 for tracking left-right translational head movements, i.e. lateral movements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/38 for tracking vertical translational head movements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/00 Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD] real-time bi-directional transmission of motion video data H04N7/14 ; broadcast or conference over packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/21805 enabling multiple viewpoints, e.g. using a plurality of cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234327 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234345 the reformatting operation being performed only on part of the stream, e.g. a region of the image or a time segment
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44218 Detecting physical presence or behaviour of the user, e.g. using sensors to detect if the user is leaving the room or changes his face expression during a TV program methods or arrangements for recognising human body or animal bodies or body parts G06V40/10; methods or arrangements for acquiring or recognising human faces, facial parts, facial sketches, facial expressions G06V40/16; methods or arrangements for recognising movements or behaviour G06V40/20; arrangements for identifying users in broadcast systems H04H60/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4728 for selecting a Region Of Interest [ROI], e.g. for requesting a higher resolution version of a selected region
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/816 : involving special video data, e.g 3D video
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 : for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture

Abstract

A transmitting virtual reality (VR) content method is disclosed that includes receive, by a network element, VR content packets transmitted by a VR content server for a single VR content scene and quality of service (QoS) transmission priorities for the VR content packets, wherein the QoS transmission priorities comprise a first QoS transmission priority corresponding to a first plurality of the VR content packets and a second QoS transmission priority corresponding to a second plurality of the VR content packets. In this embodiment, the method also includes transmitting, by the network element, the first plurality of the VR content packets based on the first QoS transmission priority and the second plurality of the VR content packets based on the second transmission priority, wherein the second QoS transmission priority is different from the first QoS transmission priority.

Claims

1. A method by a network element for transmitting virtual reality (VR) content, comprising:

receiving VR content packets transmitted by a VR content server for a single VR content scene and quality of service (QoS) transmission priorities for the VR content packets, wherein the QoS transmission priorities comprise a first QoS transmission priority corresponding to a first plurality of the VR content packets and a second QoS transmission priority corresponding to a second plurality of the VR content packets; and

transmitting the first plurality of the VR content packets based on the first QoS transmission priority and the second plurality of the VR content packets based on the second transmission priority, wherein the second QoS transmission priority is different from the first QoS transmission priority.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein a plurality of VR content areas are defined for different portions of the single VR content scene in relation to a field of view (FOV) of a user.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the QoS transmission priorities corresponds to the VR content packets of VR content areas respectively.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a policy and charging control (PCC) rule, wherein the PCC rule comprises a QoS processing rule to prompt the network element entity to determine the QoS transmission priority for the VR content packets.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the QoS processing rule comprises a VR content server address to enable the network element entity to obtain the QoS transmission priorities for the VR content packets from the VR content server.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising discarding a third plurality of VR content packets with a third QoS transmission priority.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first plurality of the VR content packets based on the first QoS transmission priority and the second plurality of the VR content packets based on the second transmission priority are sent by the VR content server via a single flow between the VR content server and the network element entity.

8. A method by a virtual reality (VR) content server for transmitting VR content, comprising:

receiving a VR content request for a single VR content scene, wherein the VR content request comprises information relating to a terminal line of sight;

obtaining, based on the information relating to the terminal line of sight, a field of view identifier (FOV ID) for the VR content request;

selecting, based on the FOV ID, VR content packets that had been previously encoded from a plurality of sets of VR content packets;

determining quality of service (QoS) transmission priority for VR content packets, wherein the QoS transmission priority comprises a first QoS transmission priority for a first plurality of the VR content packets and a second QoS transmission priority for a second plurality of the VR content packets; and

transmitting the VR content packets and the QoS transmission priority.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein determining the QoS priority comprises:

receiving network data information; and

wherein determining the QoS priority includes determine QoS priority based on the network status.

10. The method according to claim 9 wherein the network data comprises at least one of throughput information, latency information, packet loss information or error rate information.

11. The method according to claim 8 further comprising sending a QoS processing rule to a network element, wherein the QoS processing rule prompts the network element to utilize QoS transmission priorities based on QoS information.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the QoS processing rule comprises at least one of a resource address and a destination address.

13. The method according to claim 8, further comprising:

sending, before the receiving a VR content request from a VR terminal device, an index of the VR content scene to the terminal device, wherein the index comprises at least two field of view identifiers (FOV ID) relating to a terminal line of sight;

wherein the FOV ID in the VR content request is selected from the index according to the terminal line of sight.

14. The method according to claim 8, further comprising, prior to receiving a VR content request, encoding the plurality of sets of VR content packets;

wherein a first set corresponds to a first expected FOV ID, a second set corresponds to a second expected FOV ID, and a third set corresponds to a third expected ID.

15. The method according to claim 14 wherein the first, second and third expected FOV ID are predicted based upon a last obtained FOV ID in relation to a last terminal line of sight.

16. The method according to claim 8, the information relating to the terminal line of sight is FOV ID relating to the terminal line of sight, or the terminal line of sight information.

17. The method according to claim 8, wherein the VR content packets and the QoS transmission priority is transmitted to the network element via a single channel.

18. A method by a terminal device for receiving virtual reality (VR) content, comprising:

receiving an index of a VR content scene, wherein the index comprises at least two field of view identifiers (FOV IDs) in relation to a terminal line of sight;

selecting a FOV ID from the index based on a terminal line of sight;

sending a VR content request comprising the selected FOV ID for the VR content scene;

receiving the VR content packets having a first QoS corresponding to the selected FOV ID of the VR content scene; and

receiving VR content packets having a second and lower QoS and also having a different FOV ID of the VR content scene.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein the VR content packets have different quality of service (QoS) transmission priorities, and wherein the method further comprises:

displaying the VR content packets based on the QoS transmission priorities.

20. The method according to claim 18, wherein the VR content packets comprises a first plurality of the VR content packets corresponding to a first QoS transmission priority and a second plurality of the VR content packets corresponding to a second QoS transmission priority and a third plurality of the VR content packets corresponding to a third QoS transmission priority;

the displaying the VR content packets based on the QoS information comprises;

displaying the first and the second plurality of the VR content packets.

21. The method according to claim 18, further comprising:

sending a relationship between the FOV ID and the terminal line of sight.

22. A network element, comprising:

a non-transitory memory comprising instructions; and

one or more processors in communications with the memory, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to;

receive VR content packets transmitted by a VR content server for a single VR content scene and quality of service (QoS) transmission priorities for the VR content packets, wherein the QoS transmission priorities comprise a first QoS transmission priority corresponding to a first plurality of the VR content packets and a second QoS transmission priority corresponding to a second plurality of the VR content packets; and

transmit the first plurality of the VR content packets based on the first QoS transmission priority and the second plurality of the VR content packets based on the second transmission priority, wherein the second QoS transmission priority is different from the first QoS transmission priority.

23. The network element according to claim 22, wherein the one or more processors are configured to further execute the instructions to:

receive a policy and charging control (PCC) rule, wherein the PCC rule comprises a QoS processing rule to prompt the network element entity to determine the QoS transmission priority for the VR content packets.

24. The network element according to claim 22, wherein the one or more processors are configured to further execute the instructions to:

discarding a third plurality of VR content packets with a third QoS transmission priority.

25. A virtual reality (VR) content server, comprising:

a non-transitory memory comprising instructions; and

one or more processors in communications with the memory, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to;

receive a VR content request for a single VR content scene, wherein the VR content request comprises information relating to a terminal line of sight;

obtain, based on the information relating to the terminal line of sight, a field of view identifier (FOV ID) for the VR content request;

select, based on the FOV ID, VR content packets that had been previously encoded from a plurality of sets of VR content packets;

determine quality of service (QoS) transmission priority for VR content packets, wherein the QoS transmission priority comprises a first QoS transmission priority for a first plurality of the VR content packets and a second QoS transmission priority for a second plurality of the VR;

transmit the VR content packets and the QoS transmission priority.

26. The virtual reality (VR) content server according to claim 25, comprising:

wherein the one or more processors are configured to further execute the instructions to;

receiving network data information; and

wherein determining the QoS priority includes determine QoS priority based on the network status.

27. A terminal device, comprising:

a non-transitory memory comprising instructions; and

one or more processors in communications with the memory, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to;

receive an index of a VR content scene, wherein the index comprises at least two field of view identifiers (FOV IDs) in relation to a terminal line of sight;

select a FOV ID from the index based on a terminal line of sight;

send a VR content request comprising the selected FOV ID for the VR content scene;

receive the VR content packets having a first QoS corresponding to the selected FOV ID of the VR content scene; and

receive VR content packets having a second and lower QoS and also having a different FOV ID of the VR content scene.