Virtual Separate Space for VR Social Interaction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current virtual reality (VR) technologies lack the ability to provide users with a private, customizable space within a VR experience, limiting social interaction and multitasking capabilities while maintaining focus on a single VR event.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a virtual separate space within a VR environment allows users to create a customized, private area where they can view a moderated version of the VR experience, enabling side conversations and multitasking, while their avatars are represented in an altered form to indicate their presence in this separate space, reducing server load by distributing experiences across different user groups.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If users are provided with a private, customizable space within a VR environment, then user experience and social interaction capabilities are improved, but server load and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the virtual environment into separate segments: a main virtual venue and a virtual separate space. Users can selectively enter the separate space to create private areas for side conversations and activities. This segmentation allows the system to provide customization and privacy only where needed, rather than making the entire VR system complex.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a moderator or host role that manages access to and from the virtual separate space. This intermediary component handles the complexity of space management, user permissions, and transitions, isolating the system's complexity to a specific management layer rather than permeating the entire VR environment.
2Ease of operation
If users can create private spaces for side conversations, then social interaction quality is improved, but server resources are consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements partial separation where only specific users who need private spaces are moved to the virtual separate space, while the majority of users remain in the main virtual venue. This partial action approach allows the system to provide enhanced social interaction capabilities to those who need them without unnecessarily consuming server resources for all users.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual separate space is designed to serve multiple functions: private conversations, secondary VR experiences, and breakout sessions. This multi-functionality allows a single server resource allocation to support diverse user needs, improving ease of operation for social interaction while optimizing resource utilization.
3Adaptability or versatility
If avatars are represented in altered form in separate space, then user privacy and customization are improved, but visual clarity and user identification become difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different visual properties to avatars based on their location and context. In the virtual separate space, avatars can be displayed in altered forms (such as silhouettes or simplified representations) that provide privacy and customization. When users transition to or from the separate space, their avatar representation adjusts accordingly, maintaining local quality appropriate for each environment.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent utilizes visual changes in avatar representation, such as color variations or transparency adjustments, to indicate when a user is in the virtual separate space versus the main venue. These visual modifications enhance privacy and customization while maintaining sufficient visual distinction for user identification and awareness of presence.
Data Source
AI summary
Implementations can provide a virtual separate space with respect to a virtual venue hosting a virtual reality (VR) experience, such as a concert, a sports game, a meeting, etc., e.g., to replicate the feeling of a side conversation to discuss the VR experience. Some implementations can create a more intimate experience for users viewing a VR experience by providing a quiet, curated space that can be customized, e.g., by changing the look of users' avatars and their virtual environment, without their interactions being observed by others viewing the VR experience at the virtual venue. The virtual separate space can include a moderated version of the VR experience, such as a smaller version of the VR experience with the sounds of the VR experience muffled. Thus, users within the virtual separate space can step away from the VR experience to enter a more controlled environment, while still enjoying the VR experience.