Head-Mounted Display Partial Transparency for Immersive Transitions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing content playback systems, particularly in augmented and immersive reality modes, fail to seamlessly transition users back to their previous experience after interruptions, such as notifications or environmental changes, disrupting the user's experience and potentially causing safety or social issues.
Innovation Solution
A head-mounted content playback system that monitors various triggers to switch between immersive and augmented reality modes, allowing users to remain aware of their surroundings through partial transparency, audio cues, and interactive notifications, enabling seamless transitions based on triggers from external systems, environmental changes, and content-based alerts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the display fully occupies the user's field of view in immersive mode, then the immersive experience is improved, but the user becomes unaware of their surroundings
Solution Approach 1:
The display is divided into multiple regions with different transparency levels. A first region provides full transparency to allow viewing of surroundings, while a second region displays immersive content. This segmentation allows simultaneous immersion and environmental awareness without requiring the user to remove the head-mounted display.
2Loss of information
If the user removes the head mounted display to take action on environmental conditions, then awareness of surroundings is improved, but the immersive experience is interrupted
Solution Approach 1:
The system proactively provides environmental awareness information through the transparent first region of the display before the user needs to remove the head-mounted display. This preliminary action allows users to remain informed about surroundings while maintaining their immersive experience, eliminating the need to remove the device to check environmental conditions.
3Loss of information
If alerts are displayed during immersive mode, then user awareness of external conditions is improved, but the immersive experience is disrupted
Solution Approach 1:
Alerts and environmental information are displayed in specific localized regions of the transparent display rather than overwhelming the entire field of view. This local quality approach ensures that important external information is conveyed while maintaining the immersive content in other areas, minimizing disruption to the immersive experience.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and apparatus for implementing a playback system capable of operating as a virtual or augmented reality device are described. In various embodiment one or more environmental triggers are detected and an action is taken based on the detected trigger, user input and/or other environmental conditions. The methods allow a user who is subject to an immersive experience to smoothly transition in/or out of the virtual environment and respond to environmental triggers which may require a user to take an action.