Room Scale VR Collision Avoidance via Virtual Rotators
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current virtual reality systems face limitations in allowing players to experience a large virtual world within a physically confined space, often resulting in unnatural interruptions such as bumping into walls, due to the physical constraints of the room.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a room scale virtual reality system that utilizes rotators and teleporters to enable players to change direction and location within the virtual world without changing their physical orientation, allowing for a seamless and immersive experience by using rotators to rotate the player's virtual perspective and teleporters to instantly relocate the player, thereby avoiding physical obstacles.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the player physically walks around a room in a room scale virtual reality system, then the player can experience motion in the virtual world corresponding to physical movement, but the player encounters unnatural interruptions such as bumping into walls due to physical space limitations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces virtual intermediaries (rotators and teleporters) that mediate between the player's physical position and virtual exploration goals. These intermediaries allow the player to change virtual direction and location without corresponding physical movement, resolving the contradiction by providing a virtual mechanism that bridges the gap between limited physical space and unlimited virtual world exploration.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds virtual dimensionality to the physical space by introducing rotational and teleportation capabilities in the virtual world that do not require corresponding physical movements. This allows the player to explore the virtual world in additional dimensions (rotation angles, teleportation destinations) beyond the constraints of physical room boundaries, resolving the contradiction between physical space limits and virtual exploration freedom.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the player changes physical orientation to explore different directions in the virtual world, then the player can access new virtual areas, but the player is constrained by the physical room boundaries
Solution Approach 1:
Virtual rotators act as intermediaries that decouple virtual directional access from physical movement requirements. When a player interacts with a virtual rotator, the virtual perspective rotates to face a new direction without requiring the player to physically move to that direction, allowing access to new virtual areas while remaining within the fixed physical room boundaries.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates virtual copies of directional access mechanisms (rotators positioned at different locations) that provide equivalent directional access functionality without requiring physical relocation. Each virtual rotator copy enables the player to access the same virtual directional space from different virtual positions, effectively expanding virtual direction access within the fixed physical area.
3Reliability
If the player encounters physical obstacles in the room, then the player must stop and change physical orientation, but this interrupts the immersive virtual experience
Solution Approach 1:
Virtual teleporters serve as intermediaries that allow the player to bypass physical obstacles without interrupting the virtual experience. When a player encounters a physical obstacle, they can interact with a virtual teleporter to instantly relocate their virtual position, maintaining continuous virtual exploration flow without requiring physical movement around the obstacle.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements instantaneous teleportation that allows the player to skip over physical obstacles entirely rather than navigating around them. This rushing through mechanism eliminates the need to stop or change physical orientation when encountering obstacles, maintaining the flow and immersion of the virtual experience by directly transporting the player to the desired virtual location.
Data Source
AI summary
A virtual reality system comprising a headset, a primary battery, a secondary battery (provides backup power), an output device which displays a 3-D virtual world (VW) based on the orientation and position of the headset. Swapping of the primary battery with a physical battery is viewed in the (VW) using virtual counterparts of the primary battery and the secondary battery in an output device in the headset. A user physically swaps the batteries while “seeing” the swapping taking place in the VW. The locations the user sees (through the headset) the primary battery and secondary battery correspond to their locations in the real world relative to the headset so that while the user physically feels (with his/her hands) the primary battery and the secondary battery the locations of the primary battery and the secondary battery in the VW correspond to what the user feels so that the swapping feels “real.”