XR Audio Directionality via Spatial Tracking and Contextual Cues
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing extended reality (XR) technologies struggle to effectively direct audio and video in immersive environments, particularly when users are involved in multiple interactions, leading to difficulties in determining the intended recipient of utterances and maintaining privacy across changing physical environments.
Innovation Solution
The system establishes communication groups within XR environments, tracks users' locations and directional positions, and uses contextual cues like gaze, audio, and cadence to determine the intended recipient of utterances, presenting them in a manner that simulates the spatial relationship between users, while maintaining privacy across different physical environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If audio and video are presented to all users in an XR environment, then everyone can hear and see all interactions, but privacy is compromised and users cannot have directed personal conversations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by directing audio and video content to specific users based on their spatial location and orientation in the XR environment. Instead of uniform presentation to all users, the system selectively delivers communications to intended recipients while maintaining different quality levels for different users, thereby enabling private conversations without compromising overall communication clarity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts audio and video presentation based on real-time tracking of user locations, orientations, and interactions. As users move or change their directional positions within the XR environment, the system adaptively redirects communications to maintain appropriate privacy levels while ensuring the intended recipient always receives the communication clearly.
2Measurement precision
If the system tracks detailed location and directional position data, then directed audio presentation becomes accurate, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a multi-functional tracking system that simultaneously captures location, directional position, and interaction context data using integrated sensors. This universal approach allows the system to derive multiple spatial parameters from a single tracking infrastructure, achieving high measurement precision without proportionally increasing system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The tracking system automatically processes spatial data and determines intended recipients of communications without requiring manual intervention. The system self-adjusts audio directional presentation based on tracked position data, reducing the operational complexity despite the sophisticated tracking capabilities.
3Loss of information
If the system determines intended recipients using contextual cues, then communication accuracy improves, but processing requirements and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system analyzes contextual cues such as gaze direction, audio patterns, and interaction cadence to determine intended recipients. By processing only the most relevant contextual indicators rather than all possible data points, the system achieves sufficient communication accuracy while managing processing complexity through selective analysis of key contextual parameters.
Data Source
AI summary
In one example, a method performed by a processing system including at least one processor includes establishing a communication group including at least three users of an extended reality environment as members, tracking locations and directional positions of the members of the communication group within the extended reality environment and within physical environments of the members, determining that a second user of the at least three users is an intended recipient of a first utterance made by a first user of the at least three users, and presenting the first utterance to the second user, where a directionality associated with a presentation of the first utterance is based on a location and a directional position of the first user relative to the second user, and presenting a spatial awareness warning to the second user, based on the location and the directional position of the second user.