Visual Content Warping for VR Collision Avoidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users navigating virtual environments using electronic devices often collide with physical objects due to mismatched dimensions and obstructed views, leading to potential injuries and discomfort.
Innovation Solution
Electronic devices warp visual content based on user location and movement relative to physical objects, using sensors to detect trajectories and perform successive, subtle adjustments to prevent collisions, supplemented by audio and haptic cues.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If visual content is displayed without modification, then user immersion in virtual environment is maintained, but user may collide with physical objects
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies preliminary anti-action by warping visual content in advance to counteract the user's trajectory toward physical objects. Environmental sensors detect potential collision paths, and the visual content is distorted to create repulsive cues that push the user away from dangerous areas before collision occurs, thus preventing harm while maintaining immersion.
Solution Approach 2:
The visual content acts as an intermediary between the user and the physical environment. By modifying this intermediate layer rather than directly constraining user movement, the system provides safety cues through the virtual display itself, allowing immersion to be maintained while collision prevention is achieved through the mediated visual information.
2Reliability
If environmental sensors and visual warping are implemented, then collision prevention is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The display serves multiple functions: it presents the virtual environment for immersion and simultaneously acts as a safety interface by displaying warped visual content that prevents collisions. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate safety systems, thereby managing complexity while improving reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces mechanical collision prevention (such as physical barriers or direct movement constraints) with optical field manipulation through visual warping. This substitution uses software-based environmental sensing and display manipulation instead of complex mechanical safety systems, reducing overall device complexity while maintaining effective collision prevention.
Data Source
AI summary
Various implementations disclosed herein include devices, systems, and methods for warping visual content based on a current trajectory of a user relative in a physical environment. In some implementations, a device includes a display, an environmental sensor, one or more processors and a non-transitory memory. In some implementations, a method includes obtaining visual content corresponding to a graphical environment that is different from a physical environment of the device. In some implementations, the method includes detecting, via the environmental sensor, a current trajectory of the user in the physical environment. In some implementations, the method includes generating warped visual content by warping the visual content in response to an indication that the current trajectory of the user intersects with a physical object in the physical environment. In some implementations, the method includes displaying the warped visual content on the display.