Shared Virtual Theater for Multi-User Immersive Content
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Virtual-reality headsets typically provide isolated experiences, limiting social interaction and shared engagement among multiple users when consuming on-demand content.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for creating a shared virtual theater environment where multiple users can interact and experience on-demand content together, using content receivers and virtual-reality headsets to collect and share movement and look information, generating a synchronized virtual environment with virtual seats, screens, and stages for each user.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single user wears the virtual-reality headset at a given time, then the immersive experience is maintained, but social interaction and shared engagement are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates virtual copies (avatars) of each user within the shared virtual theater environment. Each avatar replicates the user's appearance and movements, allowing multiple users to simultaneously experience the content together while maintaining individual immersive perspectives. This copying mechanism enables social interaction without compromising the immersive quality of each user's experience.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from a single-user spatial experience to a multi-user virtual space by adding the dimension of virtual presence. Users are projected into a shared virtual theater environment where they can interact with others through their avatars, effectively moving from one-dimensional isolation to multi-dimensional social engagement while maintaining the immersive quality of the original experience.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple users share the same physical space, then social interaction is enabled, but the immersive isolation of virtual-reality is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the virtual theater environment into individual viewing zones, each optimized for a specific user's perspective. While users share the same virtual space, each maintains their own immersive bubble with personalized seating position and viewing angle, allowing social interaction without compromising individual immersive isolation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces virtual avatars as intermediaries between users. These avatars serve as the medium through which users interact with each other in the shared environment, allowing social engagement while maintaining the immersive isolation of the virtual-reality experience, as users interact through their digital representations rather than direct physical presence.
3Adaptability or versatility
If virtual renderings of other users are displayed in real-time, then interaction is enhanced, but system complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-processing user data to create standardized avatar models and pre-establishing the virtual theater environment structure. User appearances are captured and converted into standardized avatar formats in advance, and the virtual theater framework is prepared beforehand, reducing the processing complexity required for real-time rendering of multiple users.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments are directed toward providing an interactive atmosphere for sharing on-demand content among multiple users in a virtual-reality environment. Each user utilizes a content receiver or virtual-reality headset to receive on-demand content. Each respective content receiver collects virtual-reality information associated with the user of that respective content receiver. This virtual-reality information includes movement information that describes movement of the user and look information that identifies a virtual look of the user. Content receivers share this virtual-reality information with each other so that each content receiver can generate a virtual-reality environment specific for its respective user along with the shared on-demand content. As each user physically moves his or her body, each virtual-reality environment adjusts to accommodate for these movements throughout the virtual-reality environment. This virtual-reality environment allows users to consume the same on demand content together and to interact with each other and the content itself.