Shared VR Headset Tracking for Real-Time Multi-Person Mixed Reality

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Solution Overview

Problem

There is no practical way for multiple people in the same room, each wearing a VR headset with a front-facing stereo camera, to see others while sharing a computer-simulated virtual world with full six degrees of freedom, as existing methods struggle to distinguish between pixels capturing people and the surrounding room.

Innovation Solution

A system using VR headsets with inertial motion units, cameras, and markers on the structure, combined with green screen coloring and QR codes, allows participants to see each other in real-time within a shared virtual world from their correct perspective, with differentiated interaction in near and far fields.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If inside-out tracking is used to share a virtual world, then each person experiences the virtual world from their correct perspective, but the system cannot distinguish between pixels capturing other people and pixels capturing the surrounding room

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveperspective accuracyVSAvoidpixel classification difficulty

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSDifficulty of detecting and measuring

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies green screen coloring to specific portions of the physical room. This color coding allows the VR headset's computer to easily distinguish between pixels capturing people (non-green screen areas) and pixels capturing the surrounding room (green screen areas), resolving the pixel classification difficulty while maintaining perspective accuracy through inside-out tracking

Inventive Principle:

Principle #32Color changes

2Difficulty of detecting and measuring

If green screen coloring is applied to the entire room, then it becomes easy to distinguish between people and the surrounding room, but there are insufficient visual features for inside-out tracking to work properly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepeople vs room distinctionVSAvoidtracking precision

Core Design Contradiction:

Difficulty of detecting and measuringVSMeasurement precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies green screen coloring only to specific portions of the room rather than the entire room. This localized approach allows the system to distinguish between people and the surrounding room in those specific areas while preserving sufficient visual features throughout the rest of the room for inside-out tracking to function properly

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the room into different functional zones: green screen colored portions for easy people/room distinction and non-green screen portions for providing visual features for tracking. This segmentation allows both requirements to be satisfied simultaneously in different spatial regions

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Data Source

PatentUS12485576B2Multi-person mixed reality experience, method and apparatus

Publication Date: 2025.12.02 PERLIN KENNETH

AI summary

An apparatus for viewing in a structure having a first participant and at least a second participant having a first VR headset to be worn by the first participant, and a second VR headset to be worn by the second participant. Each participant sees every other participant in the structure as every other participant physically appears in the structure in real time in a simulated world displayed about them by the respective VR headset each participant is wearing. Each participant sees the simulated world from their own correct perspective in the structure. The simulated world includes a near field and a far field. A method for a first participant and at least a second participant viewing in a structure.