Limiting avatar gesture display

• US 9,245,177 B2
• Filed: 06/02/2010
• Issued: 01/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Perez, Kathryn Stone
• Primary Examiner(s): Hon, Ming
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, PHONG X
• Application Number:
  US12/792,609
• Publication Number:
  US 20110298827A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,064 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/28 Recognition of hand or arm movements, e.g. recognition of deaf sign language static hand signs G06V40/113

Abstract

Technology determines whether a gesture of an avatar depicts one of a set of prohibited gestures. An example of a prohibited gesture is a lewd gesture. If the gesture is determined to be a prohibited gesture, the image data for display of the gesture is altered. Some examples of alteration are substitution of image data for the prohibited gesture, or performing a filtering technique to the image data depicting the gesture to visually obscure the prohibited gesture.

Claims

1. In a computer system wherein images of avatars are rendered based on skeletal model data, a method for limiting presentation of certain gestures by one or more rendered avatars, the method comprising:

tracking motions of at least one local user by using a local capture device generating motion tracking data at a local system and using the motion tracking data for updating a skeletal model of the local user, where the skeletal model can be used to produce a corresponding local avatar and one or more remote avatars;

determining if updating of the skeletal model enables one or more remote avatars to present an avatar gesture that is one of a predetermined set of prohibited gestures;

in response to said determining, determining whether update data that includes a portion which enables a remote avatar to present the prohibited avatar gesture is to be transmitted to at least one remote system to thereby enable generation by the remote system of a remote avatar presenting the prohibited avatar gesture;

responsive to the determining whether the update data is to be transmitted, determining to alter the portion, thus preventing the prohibited avatar gesture in the remote system.

2. The method of claim 1 further wherein the corresponding local avatar is produced and wherein said tracking of the motions of the local user is performed in real-time so as to enable real-time display of the updated local avatar.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the determining of whether to alter the portion that represents the prohibited avatar gesture is followed by an altering of the update data portion representing the prohibited avatar gesture and the altering comprises performing a filtering technique to motion tracking data that leads to presentation of the gesture to thereby visually obscure the prohibited gesture.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the performing of the filtering technique to the motion tracking data includes altering the motion tracking data to cause a rendering of pixilation in a remote display of a motion corresponding to the prohibited gesture.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the determining of whether to alter the portion that represents the prohibited avatar gesture is followed by an altering of updating data representing the gesture and the altering of the updating data comprises substituting-in substitute motion data for the motion tracking data representing the prohibited gesture.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the substituting-in of the substitute motion data for the motion tracking data representing the prohibited gesture further comprises causing a moving of a scene object or of a body part to avoid displaying interaction with a prohibited zone associated with a model of the avatar.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein determining whether the updating of the user skeletal model might enable remote presentation of a remote avatar that depicts one of a set of prohibited gestures further comprises:

tracking respective motions of at least two users at the local system;

responsive to the tracking, updating respective skeletal models of corresponding local avatars of the at least two users;

determining whether the updated and respective skeletal models represent a disposition of one of the updated and respective avatar skeletal models relative to another which constitutes a predetermined inappropriate disposition user between the updated and respective avatar skeletal models.

8. A computer-implemented system for limiting modeled gestures of one or more potentially displayable avatars, the system comprising:

a local depth image capture system configured to capture image data representative of live motions of a local user,

one or more data processors operatively coupled to the local depth image capture system and configured to generate a skeletal model of the local user based on the captured image data;

one or more memory devices accessible by the one or more data processors and configured to store motion tracking data corresponding to the motions of the local user as captured by the image capture system;

the one or more data processors being further configured to generate updating data for updating the skeletal model of the local user based on the stored motion tracking data;

the one or more data processors being configured to render an updated local avatar on a local display based on the updating data for the local skeletal model;

the one or more data processors being configured to determine, based on the updating data for the local skeletal model, whether the updated local avatar will have a gesture included in a predetermined set of prohibited gestures, said determining of whether a prohibited gesture will be had being based on parameter data defining criteria for motions representative of a set of prohibited gestures;

the one or more data processors being configured to determine whether updating data corresponding to that for the local skeletal model is to be transmitted to a remote system to allow a rendering thereby of a correspondingly updated remote avatar that is potentially displayable on a remote display coupled to the remote system; and

the one or more data processors being further configured to respond to the determination that the gesture is a prohibited gesture and to the determination that updating data corresponding to that prohibited gesture of the local skeletal model is to be transmitted, where the one or more data processors produce altered skeletal model updating data that obscures the prohibited gesture, and transmit said altered skeletal model updating data to the remote system in place of the updating data corresponding to the prohibited gesture.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the one or more data processors are further configured to substitute into the to-be-transmitted updating data, substitute motion data that represents a different motion than that of the updating data which corresponds to the prohibited gesture.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein the one or more data processors are further configured to allow displaying of the prohibited gesture on the local display.

11. The system of claim 8 wherein the one or more data processors are further configured to obscure imagery of the prohibited gesture by causing performance in the remote system of a filtering technique to the imagery of the prohibited gesture to thus visually obscure the prohibited gesture on the remote display.

12. The system of claim 8 wherein the image capture system comprises a microphone for capturing audio data of the user and the one or more data processors are further configured to automatically edit speech data representing sounds generated by the user while performing the prohibited gesture.

13. A computer storage device comprising instructions encoded thereon for causing one or more processors that are operatively coupled to the storage device to execute a method for limiting gesture display by an avatar, the instructions comprising:

instructions to track respectively local motions of at least a first user and a second user using one or more respectively located depth image capture devices for the users and thereby generating respective user motion tracking data at a respective one or more local systems that are remote to one another, the motion tracking data allowing the generation of a first skeletal model for controlling a first avatar and of a second skeletal model for controlling a second avatar;

instructions to determine whether the motion tracking data for the first skeletal model relative to that for the second skeletal model would result in performance by the first avatar of one of a set of prohibited gestures;

instructions to determine whether the representation of the first avatar is to be converted to image data for transmission to a second processing device; and

instructions to determine if the image data is to be transmitted to a second processing device, and if the determined avatar gesture is in the set of prohibited gestures, the instructions cause a replacing of motion data for generating the prohibited gesture with different motion data for rendering an alternate remote avatar and not transmitting the image data to the second processing device and instead transmitting the different motion data to the second processing device to allow rendering of the alternate remote avatar in place of the first avatar on the remote display, the alternate remote avatar not exhibiting the prohibited gesture while using the first skeletal model to render a local avatar on the display coupled to the local system.

14. The computer storage device of claim 13 wherein the different motion data for the avatar is stored in a motion capture file.

15. The computer storage device of claim 13 wherein said tracking is performed by tracking in real-time motions of a user as determined from mapping image data of the user to define motions of a skeletal model and then converting the skeletal model into image data for displaying motions by a corresponding avatar.

16. The computer storage device of claim 13 wherein the image data for transmission to a second processing device comprises a stored video file, and further comprising regenerating motion tracking data for the remote avatar in the stored video file responsive to an indication that the video file is being transmitted.

17. The computer storage device of claim 13 wherein the instructions further comprise instructions to track in real-time motions of an avatar for data being received over a network in real-time.

18. The computer storage device of claim 13 wherein the instructions further include instructions to display the prohibited gesture on the local display.

19. The computer storage device of claim 13 wherein replacing motion data for the gesture with different motion data for the avatar further comprises replacing motion for one or more body parts used in the gesture with motion for the same one or more body parts.