Virtual Content Docking and Mode Switching in 3D Environments
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for interacting with virtual and augmented reality environments are cumbersome, inefficient, and place a significant cognitive burden on users, often requiring multiple inputs and providing insufficient feedback, leading to errors and energy wastage, particularly in battery-operated devices.
Innovation Solution
The system employs improved user interfaces that reduce the number and complexity of user inputs by utilizing touch-sensitive displays, eye-tracking, hand-tracking, and tactile output generators, enabling efficient switching of content items, transitioning between immersive and framed modes, and facilitating docking based on input angles and viewpoints, while maintaining display of three-dimensional environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If conventional input methods are used in virtual reality environments, then user interaction capability is provided, but cognitive burden increases and interaction efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides immediate visual feedback by displaying representations of content items at docked positions in the three-dimensional environment, allowing users to see the state of their interactions without cognitive load. The feedback mechanism shows content item representations that update in response to user inputs, reducing the mental effort required to track interaction states.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary representation layer between the user and the actual content items. Instead of directly manipulating content items, users interact with representations at docked positions, which then trigger actions on the actual content items. This intermediary layer simplifies the interaction model and reduces cognitive burden.
2Productivity
If multiple input steps are required to achieve desired outcomes, then precise control is achieved, but interaction time increases and energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by automatically docking content items at specific positions in the three-dimensional environment based on user inputs. The docked representations are prepared in advance, so when users provide inputs, the system can quickly execute the desired actions without requiring multiple sequential steps, thereby reducing interaction time and energy consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables users to skip intermediate steps in the interaction process. By providing representations at docked positions that directly respond to user inputs, the system allows users to rush through the interaction process and achieve desired outcomes faster, reducing both interaction time and energy consumption.
3Measurement precision
If detailed feedback is provided for user inputs, then interaction accuracy improves, but system complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides feedback by displaying representations of content items at docked positions that reflect the state of user inputs. This feedback mechanism achieves high measurement precision by visually representing the current state without requiring complex processing, as the representations directly map to the underlying data structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates simplified copies or representations of content items at docked positions. These representations serve as lightweight proxies that provide detailed feedback about the system state without requiring the full complexity of the actual content items, thereby reducing system complexity while maintaining high measurement precision.
Data Source
AI summary
One or more computer systems switch a representation of a first content item at a docked position in an environment with a representation of a second content item in the environment in response to input, switch from displaying a first environment to displaying a second environment in response to input while displaying a representation of a first content item at a docked position, detect and respond to events corresponding to requests to move virtual content in an environment, detect and respond to events corresponding to requests to transition a mode of display of virtual content in the environment, display a first framing element concurrently with a representation of a content item having different degrees of transparency in response to detecting an input, and/or facilitate docking of a content item in an environment based on an input, and/or determine clusters of virtual objects and restore virtual objects after a reboot event.