Linguistic and icon based message conversion for virtual environments and objects

• US 9,684,430 B1
• Filed: 07/27/2016
• Issued: 06/20/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: InstAvatar Co.
• Original Assignee: Strip messenger
• Inventors: Perigault, Albin
• Primary Examiner(s): He, Jialong
• Application Number:
  US15/221,519
• Time in Patent Office: 328 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0237 using prediction or retrieval techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/284 Lexical analysis, e.g. tokenisation or collocates
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72427 for supporting games or graphical animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72436 for text messaging, e.g. short messaging services [SMS] or e-mails

Abstract

Systems and methods that convert messages to virtual actions and behaviors of virtual objects are provided herein. An example method includes receiving a message in from a user, the message having linguistic content, performing a lexical analysis of the linguistic content to determine one or more tokens within the linguistic content, where a token includes words or phrases of the linguistic content that are indicative of an emotion, and selecting one or more expressions for an avatar of the user based on the one or more tokens present in the linguistic content.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a message from a user, the message comprising linguistic content;

performing a lexical analysis of the linguistic content to determine one or more tokens within the linguistic content, wherein a token comprises words or phrases of the linguistic content that are indicative of an emotion, and wherein the one or more tokens comprise either emote types or word types, the emote types triggering a higher priority emotion than emotions triggered by the presence of the word types;

assigning a higher priority to any of the one or more tokens occurring at an end of the message;

selecting one or more facial expressions of an avatar of the user based on the one or more tokens present in the linguistic content, the selection based on the assignment of the higher priority to any of the one or more tokens occurring at the end of the message; and

displaying, on a user interface of a computing device, the avatar of the user, with the selected one or more facial expressions.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein performing the lexical analysis of the linguistic content comprises determining one or more tokens that correspond to actions or gestures.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising selecting a gesture of the avatar based on the one or more tokens that correspond to actions or gestures.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein if no tokens correspond to actions or gestures, a default gesture is selected for the avatar.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising determining an order of the one or more tokens, which dictates an order of selection of the one or more facial expressions.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the token comprises a root token and one or more additional tokens that extend the root token.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the one or more tokens are assigned a random weighting that causes a selection of either a basic facial expression or a rare facial expression as the one or more facial expressions by the avatar.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein performing the lexical analysis of the linguistic content comprises determining one or more tokens that correspond to graphix content, which comprise independent context that is neither emotional nor gestural.

9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising selecting a background or environment for the avatar based on the graphix content.

10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising grouping pluralities of similar tokens together based on a similarity of emotion in the words or phrases.

11. The method according to claim 1, further comprising displaying a portion of the message in a speech bubble associated with the avatar.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein tokens associated with the words or phrases of the linguistic content that are indicative of the emotion in the portion of the message are removed before placement of the portion into the speech bubble.