Dynamic Resolution Allocation for 360-Degree Content Streaming
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing content streaming technologies face challenges in efficiently transmitting high-quality 360-degree environmental content due to transmission constraints, as not all portions of the environment are equally important to the viewer, and current methods fail to dynamically adjust resolution based on user feedback.
Innovation Solution
The system prioritizes environmental portions based on user feedback, using selective resolution allocation and UV maps to downsample and encode images differently for each frame time, allowing for dynamic adjustment of resolution to focus on high-priority areas, thereby optimizing data rate and perceived quality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If full resolution images are transmitted, then image quality is improved, but data transmission requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by allocating different resolution levels to different portions of the 360-degree environment based on their importance. High-priority portions (where action occurs) are transmitted at higher resolution, while low-priority portions are transmitted at lower resolution. This resolves the contradiction by maintaining high image quality where needed while reducing overall data transmission volume.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic resolution allocation that changes over time based on user feedback and detected action locations. The system continuously adjusts which portions receive high resolution versus low resolution transmission, allowing image quality to adapt to changing scene importance while managing data transmission requirements dynamically.
2Ease of manufacture
If uniform resolution is allocated to all environment portions, then encoding simplicity is maintained, but perceived quality decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the 360-degree environment into multiple portions with different priority levels, applying different resolution allocations to each portion. This maintains encoding simplicity through systematic segmentation while significantly improving perceived quality by concentrating high resolution on important areas rather than uniformly distributing resources.
3Measurement precision
If resolution is dynamically adjusted based on user feedback, then perceived quality is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where user viewing information is collected and used to determine which environment portions are important. This feedback loop enables dynamic resolution adjustment that improves perceived quality while managing system complexity through automated processing of user feedback data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary encoding of multiple environment portions at different resolution levels before transmission. This preliminary action prepares the content in advance, reducing real-time processing complexity while enabling dynamic resolution selection based on user feedback during playback.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and apparatus for collecting user feedback information from viewers of content are described. Feedback information is received from viewers of content. The feedback indicates, based on head tracking information in some embodiments, where users are looking in a simulated environment during different times of a content presentation, e.g., different frame times. The feedback information is used to prioritize different portions of an environment represented by the captured image content. Resolution allocation is performed based on the feedback information and the content re-encoded based on the resolution allocation. The resolution allocation may and normally does change as the priority of different portions of the environment change.