Free-space human interface for interactive music, full-body musical instrument, and immersive media controller

• US 7,402,743 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2005
• Issued: 07/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SpaceHarp Corporation
• Original Assignee: Bodyharp Interactive Corporation
• Inventors: Clark, David F., Gibbon, John G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Donovan; Lincoln
• Assistant Examiner(s): Warren; David S.
• Application Number:
  US11/171,722
• Publication Number:
  US 20070000374A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,118 Days
• Field of Search: 846/00, 846/15, 846/78, 250/201.1, 250/204, 250/205, 250/206, 250/206.1, 250/208.2, 250/215, 250/221, 250/222.1, 250/578.1
• US Class Current: 84/615
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/0008 Associated control or indicating means
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/0066 using a MIDI interface
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/145 Multiplayer musical games, e.g. karaoke-like multiplayer videogames
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/341 Floor sensors, e.g. platform or groundsheet with sensors to detect foot position, balance or pressure, steps, stepping rhythm, dancing movements or jumping shoe sensors G10H2220/336
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/411 Light beams key actuation detection using light G10H2220/305
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/415 Infrared beams
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 3/06 using photoelectric pick-up means

Abstract

“Method and apparatus entraining interactive media players into a sustained experience of “Kinesthetic Spatial Sync,” defined as a perceived simultaneity and spatial superposition between a non-tactile, full body (“free-space”) input control process and immersive multisensory feedback. Asynchronous player input actions and (MIDI tempo) clock-synchronous media feedback events exhibit a seamless synesthesia¹ or multisensory events fused into an integral event perception, this being between musical sound (hearing), visual responses (sight), and body kinesthetic (radial extension, angular position, height, speed, timing, and precision). This non-tactile interface process and multisensory feedback “look and feel” is embodied as an optimal ergonomic human interface for interactive music and as a six-degrees-of-freedom full-body-interactive immersive media controller. The invention provides for a wide scope of fully reconfigurable transfer functions between kinesthetic input features and media responses (“Creative Zone Behaviors”) managed by means of MIDI protocol and/or display interface commands. Alternative forms of optomechanical embodiments are disclosed, including floor Platform systems and floor-stand-mounted Console systems, all of which exhibit identical free-space input and integrated media response paradigms.”

Claims

1. An interactive system designed to allow a user to control the interactive system with body parts moving through free space, comprising:

a photo emission source;

a detector designed to;

receive photons from the photo emission source; and

create a detector signal proportional to an amount of received photo emissions;

a processor system designed to process the detector signal and output a conditioned control signal; and

a feedback system designed to provide feedback information to the user in conditioned response to the amount of photons blocked by the user, wherein the feedback system comprises;

a first light that is located proximate to the detector and which is controlled by the detector signal; and

a second light that is located proximate to the detector and which is controlled by the conditioned control signal.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the feedback system further comprises visual and auditory feedback information to a user in response to the control signal.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the visual and auditory feedback responses include real-time quantization and conditioned sustain durations in a free space interface, designed to entrain the user into a desired perceptual-motor, cognitive state.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the photo emission source further comprises an infrared light source that floods a controller surface, which has at least one detector mounted thereon.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor system further comprising a MIDI tempo clock input that is used to calculate the control signal.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the processor system further includes a response state definition data store used to calculate the control signal.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein brightness, hue, and saturation state definitions of the first light is supplied by the data store and which state change events are controlled by the detector signal.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein brightness, hue, and saturation state definitions of the second light is supplied by the data store and which state change events are controlled by a detector signal.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the effect of the control of the first light and second light is designed to give an effect to the user of instant control of the conditioned output even though the conditioned output is delayed from when the first light changes state.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the feedback information comprises a sound output which is quantized and temporally synchronized in audible event onset, sustain and release with the behavior of the second light.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the feedback information is selected from the group consisting of:

computer graphics, immersive robotic lighting, lasers, pyrotechnic systems, water projection systems, robotic control systems, aroma therapy projection, sound systems, lighting systems, servo control systems, visual display systems, and projected air flow systems.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor system is a computer designed to receive the detector signal and determine the control signal which is appropriate and conditioned, to control the feedback information.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein determining the appropriate control signal is created by a data store system and a MIDI tempo clock.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the photo emission source includes a visible light source.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising multiple spaced detectors positioned in at least one platform to allow a person to stand on the platform and activate the detectors using various body part motions.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the multiple spaced detector arrangement is determined by biometric constraints of the user'"'"'s shadow projection onto the platform to enhance biofeedback entrainment effects.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the multiple detectors, the processor system, and feedback information are operating substantially in parallel behavior.

18. The system of claim 1, further comprising multiple detectors positioned in at least one elevated console and which are spaced to allow a person to activate the detectors, wherein activating the detectors involves using the upper torso parts of the user, including head and arms of the body, to affect changes, as contrasted with the platform which accepts full-body inputs.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the number of detectors is at least eight and at most-thirty two.

20. An interactive system designed to allow a user to control the interactive system with body parts moving through free space, comprising:

a photo emission source;

a detector designed to;

receive photons from the photo emission source; and

create a detector signal proportional to an amount of received photo emissions;

a processor system designed to process the detector signal and output a conditioned control signal, wherein the processor system includes a response state definition data store used to calculate the control signal; and

a feedback system designed to provide feedback information to the user in conditioned response to the amount of photons blocked by the user, wherein the feedback system comprises;

a first light that is located proximate to the detector and which is controlled by the detector signal, wherein brightness, hue, and saturation state definitions of the first light is supplied by the data store and which state change events are controlled by the detector signal; and

a second light that is located proximate to the detector and which is controlled by the conditioned control signal.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the feedback system further comprises visual and auditory feedback information to a user in response to the control signal.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the visual and auditory feedback responses include real-time quantization and conditioned sustain durations in a free space interface, designed to entrain the user into a desired perceptual-motor, cognitive state.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the photo emission source further comprises an infrared light source that floods a controller surface, which has at least one detector mounted thereon.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the processor system further comprising a MIDI tempo clock input that is used to calculate the control signal.