3D virtual environment creation management and delivery system

• US 6,058,397 A
• Filed: 04/08/1997
• Issued: 05/02/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America, Inc. (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Inventors: Barrus, John, McKeown, Stephan, Sterns, Ilene B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Amsbury, Wayne
• Assistant Examiner(s): Corrielus, Jean M.
• Application Number:
  US08/835,497
• Time in Patent Office: 1,120 Days
• Field of Search: 707/500, 707/104, 707/102, 382/154, 705/35, 345/329, 345/302, 345/474, 345/473
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/00 Three dimensional [3D] modelling, e.g. data description of 3D objects
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A virtual reality environment creation, modification and delivery system stores information representing the virtual reality environment in a database where portions of it may be created, modified or delivered without affecting other portions. The database may be accessed, for example, over a network such as a wide area network, to allow database records to be individually updated without affecting other records in the database. In this manner, it is not necessary to read and store an entire virtual reality environment file in order to make changes to it. In addition, characteristics of target machines dictate what version the database reads out, thus to provide a version compatible with the target machine.

Claims

1. A virtual reality system, comprising:

a computer for generating a virtual reality environment;

a database for storing data representing said generated virtual reality environment; and

a database engine for accessing said database and delivering a portion of the stored data representing the generated virtual reality environment without delivering another portion of the stored data representing the generated virtual reality environment.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said database is a relational database and the virtual reality environment is a 3-D environment.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein;

said virtual reality environment is formed of different parts,

each part is stored in a different record in the database so that each different record is deliverable independent of the other records, and

the database engine is configured to access and deliver data in a selected one of the records without delivery of data in other of the records.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein said parts are locales.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the database engine is configured to access each different record of said database individually.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein said database has stored therein a number of versions of said virtual reality environment and further comprising:

a network; and

a target machine coupled to said network, said target machine having a predetermined configuration;

wherein the database engine transmits to the target machine only that version of said virtual reality environment stored in said database which is compatible with the predetermined configuration.

7. A method for delivery of information comprising the steps of:

representing, in a relational database, an aspect of a virtual reality with a first set of information corresponding to a first quality level and a second set of information corresponding to a second quality level, said first set of information different than said second set of information;

delivering said first set of information from the relational database to a first device; and

delivering the second set of information from the relational database to a second device.

8. The method as recited by claim 7, wherein said virtual reality environment is a 3D environment.

9. The method as recited by claim 7, wherein said aspect of the environment is texture.

10. The method as recited by claim 7 wherein said first and second device are coupled in communication with each other over a network.

11. The method as recited by claim 10, wherein said network is a wide area, distributed network.

12. The method as recited by claim 10, wherein said first set of information is delivered over said network.

13. The method as recited by claim 7, wherein said first set of information is delivered by recording the first set of information on a medium and transporting said medium to said first device for reading by said first device.

14. The method as recited by claim 7, further comprising the step of:

communicating first characteristics of said first device and communicating second characteristics of said second device;

wherein the first set of information is delivered responsive to communication of the first characteristics and the second set of information is delivered responsive to communication of the second characteristics.

15. The method as recited by claim 14, wherein said first device and said second device are simulated on said third device.

16. A virtual reality environment comprising:

a first database record stored on a computer readable medium having stored thereon a first set of information representing an aspect of said virtual reality environment corresponding to a first quality level; and

a second database record stored on a computer readable medium having stored thereon a second set of information representing said aspect of said virtual reality environment corresponding to a second quality level, said first set of information different than said second set of information.

17. The virtual reality environment as recited by claim 16 wherein said aspect of a virtual reality environment is texture.

18. A method of updating a virtual reality environment, comprising the steps of:

reading a first database record having stored therein a first set of information representing an aspect of a generated virtual reality environment;

altering said first set of information; and

storing said altered first set of information as said first database record without storing other records relating to said generated virtual reality environment.

19. The method as recited by claim 18, wherein said aspect of the virtual reality environment is texture.

20. A system for executing a virtual reality environment, comprising:

a database for storing a virtual reality environment;

a first device for requesting access to the stored virtual reality environment and for communicating a characteristic; and

a second device for receiving the communicated request and the communicated characteristic, for retrieving the stored virtual reality environment, and for communicating said retrieved virtual reality environment to said first device, said communicated virtual reality environment tailored dependent on said characteristic.

21. The system as recited by claim 20 wherein said step of communicating a characteristic of said first device occurs in response to a request from said second device.

22. The system as recited by claim 20 wherein said characteristic of said first device is communicated with said request for access to a virtual reality environment.

23. The system as recited by claim 20 wherein said characteristic is texture.

24. The system as recited by claim 20 wherein said characteristic is a characteristic of said first device.

25. The system as recited by claim 20 wherein said characteristic is a characteristic of a target device to be simulated by said first device.

26. The system as recited by claim 25 wherein a user of said first device defines said characteristic prior to transmission to said second device.

27. A database for storing a virtual reality environment, comprising:

a first data representation representing a first part of a virtual reality scene having a first graphical object;

a second data representation representing a second part of the virtual reality scene, different than the first part, having a second graphical object; and

wherein the first data representation and the second data representation are independently retrievable from the database.

28. A database according to claim 27, wherein:

the first and the second data representations form a portion of a plurality of data representations representing the virtual reality scene in its entirety; and

the number of data representations forming the plurality of data representations is variable.

29. A database according to claim 27, wherein the first data representation and the second data representation correspond to a first image resolution, and further comprising:

a third data representation representing the first part of the virtual reality scene; and

a fourth data representation representing the second part of the virtual reality scene;

wherein the third data representation and the fourth data representation correspond to a second image resolution different than the first image resolution.

30. A database according to claim 27, wherein the first data representation and the second data representation correspond to a first image format, and further comprising:

a third data representation representing the first part of the virtual reality scene; and

a fourth data representation representing the second part of the virtual reality scene;

wherein the third data representation and the fourth data representation correspond to a second image format different than the first image format.

31. A database according to claim 27, wherein the first part includes a texture.

32. A database according to claim 31, further comprising:

a third data representation representing the first part of the virtual reality scene excluding the texture.

33. A database according to claim 31, wherein the texture includes text, the first data representation represents the first part of the virtual reality scene with the text being first version text, and further comprising:

a third data representation representing the first part of the virtual reality scene with the text being second version text.

34. A database according to claim 31, further comprising:

a third data representation representing the texture.

35. A database according to claim 27, further comprising:

a third data representation representing a relationship between the first data representation and the second data representation.

36. A relational database for storing a virtual reality environment having a plurality of graphical objects, comprising:

first data identifying one or more graphical objects within at least a portion of a virtual reality scene;

second data, related to the first data, identifying a location of each of the identified one or more graphical objects within the at least a portion of the virtual reality scene;

third data, related to the first data, identifying at least one part of each of the identified one or more graphical objects; and

fourth data, related to the third data, identifying primitives of each of the identified at least one part.

37. A relational database according to claim 36, wherein:

the first data includes a version identifier.

38. A relational database according to claim 36, wherein:

the second data includes an identifier of an author of each of the identified one or more graphical objects.

39. A relational database according to claim 36, wherein:

the third data includes an identifier of an author of each of the identified at least one part.

40. A relational database according to claim 36, wherein:

the fourth data includes an identifier of a language type of a texture map associated with at least one of the identified primitives.

41. A relational database according to claim 36, wherein:

the fourth data includes an identifier of an extent of each of the identified primitives.

42. A relational database according to claim 36, further comprising:

fifth data, related to the fourth data, identifying a texture map associated with at least one of the identified primitives.

43. A relational database according to claim 42, wherein:

the fifth data includes an identifier of a language type of the identified texture map.

44. A virtual reality system, comprising:

a network;

a first network device interconnected to the network and configured to communicate, via the network, a request for data representing a part of a virtual reality scene;

a database configured to store data representing the virtual reality scene; and

a second network device interconnected to the network and configured to extract from the database only data representing the requested part of the virtual reality scene, and to communicate, via the network, the extracted data to the first network device.

45. A virtual reality system according to claim 44, wherein the second network device is further configured to initially extract, from the database, data representing the requested part of the virtual reality scene excluding textual map images and to later extract, from the database, data representing the textual map images within the requested part of the virtual reality scene.

46. A virtual reality system according to claim 45, wherein the second network device is further configured to initiate communication of the initially extracted data to the first network device and to then initiate extraction of the data representing the textual map images.

47. A virtual reality system according to claim 46, wherein extraction of the data representing the textual map images is initiated during communication of the initially extracted information.

48. A virtual reality system according to claim 46, wherein:

the request communicated by the first network device is a first request;

the first network device is further configured to communicate a second request for the textual map images and information representing one or more attributes relating to the textual map images subsequent to the communication of the initially extracted information; and

the second network device is further configured to extract the data representing the textual map images based upon the information representing the one or more attributes subsequent to receipt of the communication of the second request and of the information representing the one or more attributes, and to communicate, via the network, the extracted data representing the textual map images to the first network device.

49. A virtual reality system according to claim 46, wherein:

the request communicated by the first network device is a first request;

the first network device is further configured to communicate a second request for the textual map images and information representing one or more attributes relating to the textual map images subsequent to the communication of the initially extracted information; and

the second network device is further configured to extract the data representing the textual map images and to convert the extracted data representing the textual map images based upon the information representing the one or more attributes, and to communicate, via the network, the converted data representing the textual map images to the first network device.

50. A virtual reality system according to claim 44, wherein the first network device includes first type graphics hardware and the request is a first request and further comprising:

a third network device, including second type graphics hardware, interconnected to the network and configured to communicate, via the network, a second request for data representing the part of a virtual reality scene;

wherein the second network device is further configured to communicate, via the network, the extracted data to the first network device in a form corresponding to the first type graphics hardware and to the third network device in a form corresponding to the second type graphics hardware.