Geometry Streaming for Live Broadcast
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current broadcasting technologies for gaming environments limit spectators to the player's field of view and suffer from video quality degradation due to lossy compression, preventing them from exploring the entire game environment or changing perspectives.
Innovation Solution
Transmitting command queues and geometry data instead of video streams allows spectators to locally render the game environment, enabling them to change camera views and see objects outside the player's field of view, while reducing bandwidth requirements through delta encoding and platform-agnostic data transmission.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If video streams are transmitted to spectators, then real-time viewing is enabled, but video quality degrades due to lossy compression and bandwidth is consumed
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of transmitting compressed video frames, the system transmits geometry data (vertex positions, transformation matrices, rendering commands) that allows spectator systems to reconstruct the visual scene locally. This copying of essential geometric information enables lossless reconstruction without the bandwidth costs of transmitting actual video pixels.
Solution Approach 2:
The system extracts only the essential geometry data and rendering commands from the game environment and transmits these to spectator systems. By taking out only the necessary geometric information rather than the complete video stream, the system reduces bandwidth consumption while maintaining the ability to reconstruct high-quality visuals locally.
2Adaptability or versatility
If spectators view through the player's field of view, then the broadcast is simple to implement, but spectators cannot explore the entire game environment or change perspectives
Solution Approach 1:
The transmitted geometry data serves multiple functions: it enables spectators to view from any camera position, explore the entire game environment, change perspectives freely, and maintain high visual quality. This universal geometry data structure supports all these viewing modes without requiring separate systems for each function.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions from transmitting 2D video frames to transmitting 3D geometry data with transformation matrices. This dimensional change enables spectators to navigate the game environment in three-dimensional space, changing camera positions and perspectives freely rather than being constrained to a fixed viewing angle.
3Reliability
If geometry data is transmitted for local rendering, then viewing quality and flexibility improve, but data transmission complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The geometry data is segmented into discrete rendering commands, transformation matrices, and vertex position data that can be efficiently transmitted and processed. By breaking down the complex scene into manageable geometric primitives and transformation data, the system reduces transmission complexity while enabling high-quality local rendering.
Data Source
Figure 1A
Figure 1B
Figure 2
AI summary
A system and method for high-quality, three-dimensional live streaming of graphical content. Graphical geometry data generated through execution of multimedia software, e.g. a video game, is converted into a geometry streaming format that is independent of the operating system of the host system running the software. The converted data is broadcast over a network to one or more spectator systems, which are configured to execute the converted data to render locally the three-dimensional content. A spectator is therefore enabled to change a viewing angle within the three-dimensional content regardless of the viewing angle associated with the host system.