Virtual Mini-Board for VR Environment Manipulation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current virtual reality (VR) technologies face challenges in allowing users to efficiently create and edit large-scale virtual environments without excessive movement, as the real-world space and VR environment often mismatch, leading to awkward and cumbersome interactions, especially for developers working in confined spaces.
Innovation Solution
A virtual mini-board system is introduced, allowing users to interact with a miniaturized view of the VR environment within arm's reach, enabling easy manipulation and editing of virtual objects through a hovering, adjustable, and interactive mini-board that provides a scaled-down representation of the environment, allowing for efficient movement and resizing of objects without requiring large gestures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If users interact directly with full-size virtual objects in VR environment, then manipulation precision is improved, but user movement burden increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a miniaturized copy of the virtual environment and objects on a handheld device surface. Users can manipulate these miniaturized copies with precise finger movements, and the system translates these gestures into corresponding full-size object manipulations in the VR environment. This resolves the contradiction by allowing precise manipulation through the copy rather than direct interaction with full-size objects.
Solution Approach 2:
The handheld device acts as an intermediary between the user and the full-size virtual objects. The device's surface serves as an intermediate workspace where miniaturized objects can be manipulated, and this intermediate interaction is then translated to control the full-size objects in the VR environment, reducing the need for extensive user movement.
2Ease of operation
If VR environment scale matches real-world space, then interaction naturalness is improved, but development efficiency decreases due to space constraints
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a second dimension of interaction by projecting a miniaturized 2D representation of the 3D virtual environment onto the handheld device surface. This allows developers to overview and manipulate multiple objects simultaneously in a compact space, improving development efficiency without sacrificing the natural 3D interaction experience when needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the interaction space into two distinct modes: full-size 3D interaction in the VR environment for detailed manipulation, and miniaturized 2D overview on the handheld device for efficient navigation and object selection. This segmentation allows developers to switch between modes depending on the task, optimizing both naturalness and efficiency.
3Adaptability or versatility
If developers work in confined real-world spaces, then portability is improved, but VR interaction capability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adapts the interaction interface based on the developer's needs and physical constraints. The handheld device provides a dynamic miniaturized view that can be adjusted and manipulated in confined spaces, while maintaining full access to the VR environment's interaction capabilities through gesture translation, thus preserving VR interaction capability regardless of physical space availability.
Data Source
AI summary
A system includes one or more hardware processors, a head mounted display (HMD) configured to display a virtual environment to a user wearing the HMD, an input device configured to allow the user to interact with virtual objects presented in the virtual environment, and a virtual mini-board module executable by the one or more hardware processors. The virtual mini-board module is configured to perform operations including providing a virtual mini-board to the user within the virtual environment, the virtual mini-board including a representation of a region of the virtual environment, detecting a scroll operation performed by the user, modifying the region of the virtual environment based on the scroll operation, and updating one or more of (1) the virtual environment and (2) the representation of the region of the virtual environment on the virtual mini-board, based on the modifying.