Virtual Object Shading With Real-World Weather UV Maps
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Solution Overview
Problem
Virtual environments lack realistic and dynamic weather representations that correlate with real-time or historical physical world weather conditions, resulting in pre-scripted and coarse-grained weather effects that fail to provide an immersive experience.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of UV map data structures to transform physical environment condition data, such as GRIB weather data, and the use of customized shaders to apply environment condition effects to virtual objects, enabling dynamic and accurate weather simulations in virtual environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If pre-scripted weather conditions are used in virtual environments, then the implementation is simple and straightforward, but the weather representation lacks realism and immersion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent copies real-world weather data from physical environments into virtual environments. Weather parameters such as temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and humidity are obtained from external weather services or sensors and directly applied to the virtual environment, creating a realistic weather representation without complex manual scripting
Solution Approach 2:
The weather system transitions from static pre-scripted conditions to dynamic, real-time weather that continuously updates based on actual physical world conditions. The system dynamically adjusts virtual weather parameters to match current, historical, or forecasted real-world weather data, enhancing realism while maintaining manageable complexity through automated data integration
2Measurement precision
If coarse-grained weather effects are applied to the entire virtual environment, then the implementation is straightforward, but the weather effects lack detail and precision
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual environment is divided into multiple regions or zones, each capable of having different weather conditions applied independently. This segmentation allows for detailed, location-specific weather effects while managing complexity through modular implementation. Different parts of the environment can experience varying weather patterns simultaneously
Solution Approach 2:
Weather effects are applied with local precision rather than uniformly across the entire environment. Specific weather parameters can be customized for different regions, allowing realistic variations in weather conditions across the virtual space while maintaining overall system manageability through localized control
3Reliability
If real-time physical world weather data is integrated, then the weather representation becomes immersive and accurate, but the data processing and transformation requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
Weather data is pre-processed and transformed into appropriate formats before being applied to the virtual environment. External weather services provide raw data that is pre-formatted into structured weather parameters, reducing the processing burden during runtime and improving rendering efficiency while maintaining data accuracy
Solution Approach 2:
An intermediary processing layer is introduced between the external weather data source and the virtual environment rendering system. This intermediary layer handles data transformation, validation, and optimization, ensuring accurate weather representation while maintaining rendering efficiency by preparing data in advance and using standardized interfaces
Data Source
AI summary
Mechanisms are provided for rendering virtual objects in a computer generated virtual environment. Physical environment condition data is received and transformed into UV map data structure(s), where each UV map data structure comprises entries that store one or more environment condition values mapped from the physical environment condition data to the UV map data structure. A customized shader processes the UV map data structure(s) to apply environment condition effects to a rendering of a virtual object corresponding to the customized shader. The customized shader executes on the environment condition data of the UV map data structure(s) and specifies a modification to a representation of the virtual object due to the environment condition values represented in the UV map data structure(s). Generation of the virtual object in the virtual environment is controlled based on results of processing the one or more UV map data structures by the customized shader.