Virtual Reality Perspective Selection and Avatar Integration
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional virtual reality media systems lack the ability to provide users with shared viewing experiences, isolating users from their physical environment and limiting perspectives to pre-defined camera positions.
Innovation Solution
The system allows users to select any arbitrary position in a virtual reality environment, generating a user perspective from the selected position, and adds virtual reality versions of friends who react to content based on real captured reactions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional virtual reality systems use pre-defined camera positions, then the system complexity is reduced, but the user's perspective flexibility is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates virtual copies of friends (avatars) that are inserted into the virtual reality media asset. These avatars replicate the physical friends' appearances and reactions, allowing users to experience shared viewing without requiring actual physical presence or complex multi-user synchronization systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from fixed 2D camera positions to arbitrary 3D positions within the virtual environment. Users can select any position in the virtual space to view the media asset, and the system generates perspectives from these user-selected positions using depth information and point cloud data, enabling free navigation through the virtual space.
2Adaptability or versatility
If virtual reality headsets isolate users from physical environment, then the virtual reality immersion is improved, but the shared viewing experience is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates virtual copies of friends (avatars) that are inserted into the virtual reality media asset. These avatars replicate the physical friends' appearances and reactions, allowing users to experience shared viewing without requiring actual physical presence or complex multi-user synchronization systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses avatars as intermediaries between the user and their physical friends. The avatars carry and display the friends' reactions to the media content, serving as a bridge that transmits social interaction information back to the user while maintaining the immersive isolation of the headset.
3Ease of operation
If fixed camera positions are used in virtual reality media assets, then the manufacturing process is simplified, but the user engagement is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the viewing position dynamic rather than fixed. Users can select arbitrary positions in the virtual environment to view the media asset, and the system dynamically generates the perspective from the user-selected position using depth information from multiple cameras and point cloud data, allowing free navigation through the virtual space.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary capture of the environment from multiple camera positions to create comprehensive depth information and point cloud data. This pre-processing enables arbitrary perspective generation later without requiring complex real-time rendering or re-shooting, as all necessary spatial information is already captured.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are described for a media guidance application (e.g., implemented on a user device) that allows users to select any arbitrary position in a virtual reality environment from where to view the virtual reality content and changes a user's perspective based on the selected position.