Configured virtual environments

• US 9,645,394 B2
• Filed: 06/25/2012
• Issued: 05/09/2017
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): YANG, ANDREW GUS
• Application Number:
  US13/532,668
• Publication Number:
  US 20130342564A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,779 Days
• Field of Search: None
• 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 configured environment, comprising:

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

creating an environment definition of the source physical environment;

associating one or more virtual objects with the environment definition;

defining one or more allowable rendering environments;

storing the one or more virtual objects associated with the environment definition to allow rendering of the configured environment in the one or more allowable rendering environments, the configured environment associated with the source physical environment and with the one or more allowable rendering environments;

determining a user presence in the one or more allowable rendering environments;

presenting a selection to view the configured environment, the configured environment having been enabled prior to selection, the selection comprising one or more configured environments available to map to a respective one of the one or more allowable rendering environments based on the determined user presence, the allowable rendering environment having a physical environment with real objects; and

rendering the configured environment upon receiving a user selection to view the configured environment at the one or more allowable rendering environments corresponding to the determined user presence such that the one or more virtual objects are rendered in the allowable rendering environment in a position relative to a corresponding one of the one or more real features in the source physical environment and blocking rendering of the configured environment when the one or more allowable rendering environments are not associated with the configured environment.

2. The method of claim 1 further including rendering a control interface for the configured environment.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the control interface comprises a miniature three dimensional projection of the configured environment.

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

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the virtual objects include one or more virtual objects representing real objects found in the source environment.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the one or more virtual objects include one or more virtual objects comprising projections of objects not based on real object in the 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 one or more allowable rendering environments.

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 operable to receive a definition of a location dependent configured environment, the definition of the location dependent configured environment based on a location of a physical source environment and including a selection of one or more virtual objects representing real objects in the physical source environment and configured for mapping to and rendering in an allowable rendering environment having a location dependent physical environment, the location dependent physical environment of the allowable rendering environment depending on a location of the configured environment;

the one or more processing devices operable to render the one or more virtual objects and environment definition when in the allowable rendering environment, where the one or more processing devices determine the display is in the one or more allowable rendering environments, present a selection to view the configured environment; and

render the configured environment upon receiving a user selection to view a rendered configured environment at the allowable rendering environment.

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 one or more allowable rendering environments, and including a source environment definition;

determining the display system is in the one or more allowable rendering environments;

presenting a selection to share a user selected subset including a partial amount of elements of the configured virtual environment in the display system, the configured virtual environment associated with the user of the display system; and

rendering the configured virtual environment upon receiving a user selection to share a rendered configured virtual environment at the one or more allowable rendering environments when the display system is present in the one or more allowable rendering environments, and blocking rendering of the configured virtual environment when the one or more allowable rendering environments are not associated with the configured 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 the 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 the step of retrieving includes retrieving from a service providing a plurality of configured environments, each configured environment associated with a rendering environment.

20. 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 when the configured virtual environment is unable to be mapped to the physical rendering environment.