Transparent Head-Mounted Displays for Surface-Aware Augmented Reality Games
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing augmented reality technologies struggle to seamlessly integrate virtual game elements into a user's physical environment, limiting the immersive and interactive experience.
Innovation Solution
The use of head-mounted displays with transparent or non-transparent screens, combined with camera systems for real-time environmental detection, allows for the interlacing of virtual game indicia into the user's perspective of their environment, enabling interactive and immersive gameplay.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If video game indicia are overlaid on transparent displays or interlaced with captured video, then the immersive experience is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the display into multiple layers: a transparent or non-transparent display layer for showing video game indicia and a camera layer for capturing environmental video. These segmented layers can be processed independently and then combined, allowing complex virtual content to be overlaid on real-world views without requiring a completely complex integrated display system.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a nested structure where video game indicia are interlaced within the captured video stream itself, creating a nested composition. The virtual elements are embedded within the real-world video feed, allowing multiple levels of content (real environment, virtual game elements, and user interface overlays) to coexist in a hierarchical manner.
2Ease of operation
If multiple cameras and processing systems are used to detect surfaces and interlace indicia in real-time, then the interactivity is improved, but the processing time and computational load increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary surface detection and environmental mapping during an initialization phase before the actual gameplay begins. By pre-processing the environment and establishing spatial relationships in advance, the real-time processing burden during interactive gameplay is significantly reduced, allowing for responsive virtual object placement without excessive computational delay.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors user interactions and adjusts the rendering of virtual indicia based on real-time feedback from sensors and camera inputs. This feedback mechanism allows the system to optimize processing by focusing computational resources on dynamically changing elements rather than continuously reprocessing the entire environment, thereby reducing overall processing time while maintaining interactivity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If head-mounted displays with transparent screens are used, then the adaptability to various environments is improved, but the manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts display parameters such as transparency level, color saturation, and virtual object scaling based on the detected environmental conditions. By changing these parameters in response to ambient lighting, surface properties, and spatial context, the system achieves high adaptability to various environments without requiring manufacturing precision at the hardware level, as the software compensates for variations in physical conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
An augmented reality home console is provided. Users can wear head-mounted displays with transparent screens and can control video game indicia that are perceived as being augmented over a user's environment by displaying video game indicia onto the transparent displays. As such, for example, two users can play an airplane dog fighting game where each user controls a plane in their living room. A device that can determine surfaces of objects (e.g., walls) can be utilized such that when the airplane is flown into a wall, the airplane explodes.