Methods and apparatus to provide user a somatosensory experience for thrill seeking jumping like activities

Abstract

A method of providing user somatosensory experience for “thrill seeking jumping like activities” (for purposes such as but not limited to training, game, or entertainment) involves:

Providing means for changing elevation of user that rapid enough for user to feel the difference of gravity feeling or “G force” with feelings of user under stationary situation, wherein the facing direction relative to the direction of movement and/or pose of the user can be changed, and the speed of elevation change provide by the means can be controlled/adjusted;

While the user using the elevation changing means, using a computer-implemented virtual reality system to present to the user a virtual reality environment. The view point and/or direction changes in the virtual reality environment are consistent with the position changes and/or self motion of the user in the elevation changing means;

So that the user experiences the virtual reality environment under a “variable gravity” condition or “G-Force” provided by the elevation changing means in a synchronized way, such “variable gravity” condition enhancing experience of the virtual reality environment. It is also possible for users to interact with the system by means such as game controller or gesture and etc, so that the output of the elevation means could be affected/changed by user input.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patents Application Ser. No. 61 / 210,107 filed Mar. 14, 2009, the full disclosures of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]The present invention generally relates to simulates or enhance user experiences in “thrill seeking jumping like activities”—free fall or speed controlled descend / ascend—such as sky-diving, bungee jumping, ski-jumping, jet pack, “turbo drop” and etc. In such activities user's (or rider's) elevation can be changed rapidly, and more particularly by using VR(virtual reality) and / or MR (Mixed reality) systems to provide visual sensation and / or “scene substitution” that is synchronized with the movement of user in the activities, thus providing an integrated somatosensory experience for user.BACKGROUND ART[0003]Bungee jumping and sky diving are 2 examples of many popular ways to generate thrilling experiences (for the passenger / ri...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0030]It is desirable that the HMD have shock absorber elements like cushions/soft resilient pads and linkage(s) with the head and e

Problems solved by technology

However they have their limitations such as expose to out door weather, scenes are limited to local area (for the amusement park machines), very limited continues “Zero-G” time span due to limited moving range (for flight

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