Tactile feedback method and apparatus, and virtual reality interactive system

• US 10,656,717 B2
• Filed: 05/31/2019
• Issued: 05/19/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 12/04/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Beijing Zhigu RUI TUO Tech Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Beijing Zhigu RUI TUO Tech Company Limited
• Inventors: Du, Lin, Zhou, Liang
• Primary Examiner(s): Sharifi-Tafreshi, Koosha
• Application Number:
  US16/428,571
• Publication Number:
  US 20190286239A1
• Time in Patent Office: 354 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3231 Monitoring the presence, absence or movement of users
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3259 Power saving in cursor control device, e.g. mouse, joystick, trackball
• 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 3/016 Input arrangements with force or tactile feedback as computer generated output to the user
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

The present application provides a tactile feedback apparatus, comprising: a contact determining module, configured to determine, on a virtual reality (VR) interactive controller, a region where contact between a user and the VR interactive controller occurs; and a tactile feedback module, configured to generate, according to relevant information of an object simulated by the VR interactive controller, at least a first contact feedback in the region where the contact occurs. The present application also provides a VR interactive system. The technical solutions provided by embodiments of the present application are used to cause that it is unnecessary to provide a tactile feedback to a user on the entire VR interactive controller, thereby greatly reducing energy consumption needed for generating a tactile feedback.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

determining, on a virtual reality (VR) interactive controller, a region where contact between a user and the VR interactive controller occurs;

generating, according to relevant information of an object simulated by the VR interactive controller, at least a first contact feedback in the region where the contact occurs; and

determining, according to the object simulated by the VR interactive controller and an ongoing virtual content plot, an action to be performed by a grip portion of the user after a preset time period; and

determining, according to the action to be performed by the grip portion of the user after the preset time period, the region where the relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs after the preset time period has passed.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

generating, according to the relevant information of the object simulated by the VR interactive controller, a first tactile feedback in the part, other than the region where the relative movement occurs, of the region where the contact occurs; and

generating, according to the relevant information of the object simulated by the VR interactive controller and a relevant parameter of the relative movement, a second tactile feedback in the region where the relative movement occurs, wherein;

the second tactile feedback comprises the first tactile feedback and an elastic force feedback.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining, according to a detection sensor distributed on a surface of the VR interactive controller, the region where the relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining, according to the object simulated by the VR interactive controller, the region where the relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining, according to a change of the grip portion of the user acquired by at least one camera, the region where the relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the operations further comprise:

analyzing a static picture or a moving image of the grip portion of the user collected by the at least one camera;

determining a change of a profile of the grip portion of the user; and

determining, according to the change of the profile of the grip portion of the user, the region where the relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining, according to a detection sensor distributed on a surface of the VR interactive controller, the region where the contact between the user and the VR interactive controller occurs on the virtual reality (VR) interactive controller.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the detection sensor distributed on the surface of the VR interactive controller comprises a pressure sensor.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein a first tactile feedback comprises:

a physical material feedback of the object simulated by the VR interactive controller and/or a texture feedback of the object simulated by the VR interactive controller.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the texture feedback comprises at least one of the following feedbacks:

a concave-convex feeling feedback and a sticky feeling feedback.

11. A virtual reality (VR) interactive system, comprising a memory, a processor, and a VR interactive controller, wherein the memory is configured to store an instruction;

and the processor is configured to execute the instruction to execute the following steps;

determining, on a virtual reality (VR) interactive controller, a region where contact between a user and the VR interactive controller occurs;

generating, according to relevant information of an object simulated by the VR interactive controller, at least a first contact feedback in the region where the contact occurs;

determining, according to an object simulated by the VR interactive controller and an ongoing virtual content plot, an action to be performed by a grip portion of the user after a preset time period; and

determining, according to the action to be performed by the grip portion of the user after the preset time period, a region where a relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs after the preset time period has passed.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the following steps:

generating, according to the relevant information of the object simulated by the VR interactive controller, a first tactile feedback in the part, other than the region where the relative movement occurs, of the region where the contact occurs; and

generating, according to the relevant information of the object simulated by the VR interactive controller and a relevant parameter of the relative movement, a second tactile feedback in the region where the relative movement occurs, wherein;

the second tactile feedback comprises the first tactile feedback and an elastic force feedback.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the following step:

determining, according to a detection sensor distributed on a surface of the VR interactive controller, the region where the relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the following step:

determining, according to the object simulated by the VR interactive controller, the region where the relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the following step:

determining, according to a change of the grip portion of the user acquired by at least one camera, the region where the relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the following steps:

analyzing a static picture or a moving image of the grip portion of the user collected by the at least one camera;

determining a change of a profile of the grip portion of the user; and

determining, according to the change of the profile of the grip portion of the user, the region where the relative movement between the grip portion of the user and the VR interactive controller occurs in the region where the contact occurs.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the following step:

determining, according to a detection sensor distributed on a surface of the VR interactive controller, the region where the contact between the user and the VR interactive controller occurs on the virtual reality (VR) interactive controller.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the detection sensor distributed on the surface of the VR interactive controller comprises a pressure sensor.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein a first tactile feedback comprises:

a physical material feedback of the object simulated by the VR interactive controller and/or a texture feedback of the object simulated by the VR interactive controller.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the texture feedback comprises at least one of the following feedbacks:

a concave-convex feeling feedback and a sticky feeling feedback.