Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Ben J Sugden

Alex Aben-Athar Kipman

Laura K Massey

Robert L Crocco, Jr

Kathryn Stone Perez

Stephen G Latta

Brian E Keane

Daniel Joseph McCulloch

Kevin Geisner

Ryan Lucas Hastings

Tom G Salter

Jason Bradley Scott

Nicholas Ferianc Kamuda

Peter Tobias Kinnebrew

Mathew Julian Lamb

Christopher E Miles

Daniel Deptford

Darren Bennett

Benjamin Isaac Vaught

Brian James Mount

John Clavin

Arthur Charles Tomlin

Alex A Kipman

Cameron Graeme Brown

Alexandre Da Veiga

Thomas Salter

Ben Vaught

Michael Scavezze

Wei Zhang

Relja Markovic

Jeffrey Neil Margolis

Nicholas Fajt

Tony Ambrus

John Bevis

Sebastian Sylvan

Jamie Bryant Kirschenbaum

Greg Alt

Michael Klucher

Jeff Sutherland

Zachary Quarles

Mark James Finocchio

Jonathan Steed

Kyungsuk David Lee

Ian Douglas McIntyre

Sheridan Martin Small

Todd Omotani

Marcus Tanner

Jon Christen

Tom Salter

Ben Woodhouse

Rod G Fleck

Adam G Poulos

Alexandru Octavian Balan

Jeffrey Alan Kohler

Drew Edward Steedly

Frederik Schaffalitzky

Aaron Daniel Krauss

Jeffrey Cole

Britta Silke Hummel

Jedd Perry

Matthew Kaplan

Roger Sebastian Kevin Sylvan

Abby Lin Lee

Jack Clevenger

Holly A Hirzel

Michael Gordon Hale

Robert Courtney Memmott

Jonathan R Christen

Robert Crocco

Arnulfo Zepeda Navratil

Joseph Van Den Heuvel

John Charles Howard

James Theodore Reichert, Jr

Christopher Obeso

Kathryn Stonw Perez

Kenneth Charles Ouellette

Ken Ouellette

Robert L Crocco

Thomas G Salter

Daniel J Mcculloch

Thomas George Salter

Jr Crocco Robert L

A see through head mounted display apparatus includes code performing a method of choosing and optimal viewing location and perspective for shared-view virtual objects rendered for multiple users in a common environment. Multiple objects and multiple users are taken into account in determining the optimal, common viewing location. The technology allows each user to have a common view if the relative position of the object in the environment.

Concurrent optimal viewing of virtual objects

A head mounted display (HMD) device operating in a real world physical environment is configured with a sensor package that enables determination of an intersection of a device user's projected gaze with a location in a virtual reality environment so that virtual objects can be placed into the environment with high precision. Surface reconstruction of the physical environment can be applied using data from the sensor package to determine the user's view position in the virtual world. A gaze ray originating from the view position is projected outward and a cursor or similar indicator is rendered on the HMD display at the ray's closest intersection with the virtual world such as a virtual object, floor/ground, etc. In response to user input, such as a gesture, voice interaction, or control manipulation, a virtual object is placed at the point of intersection between the projected gaze ray and the virtual reality environment.

Gaze-based object placement within a virtual reality environment

An HMD device is configured to vertically adjust the ground plane of a rendered virtual reality environment that has varying elevations to match the flat real world floor so that the device user can move around to navigate and explore the environment and always be properly located on the virtual ground and not be above it or underneath it. Rather than continuously adjust the virtual reality ground plane, which can introduce cognitive dissonance discomfort to the user, when the user is not engaged in some form of locomotion (e.g., walking), the HMD device establishes a threshold radius around the user within which virtual ground plane adjustment is not performed. The user can make movements within the threshold radius without the HMD device shifting the virtual terrain. When the user moves past the threshold radius, the device will perform an adjustment as needed to match the ground plane of the virtual reality environment to the real world floor.

Ground plane adjustment in a virtual reality environment

A system for allowing a virtual object to interact with other virtual objects across different spaces within an augmented reality (AR) environment and to transition between the different spaces is described. An AR environment may include a plurality of spaces, each comprising a bounded area or volume within the AR environment. In one example, an AR environment may be associated with a three-dimensional world space and a two-dimensional object space corresponding with a page of a book within the AR environment. A virtual object within the AR environment may be assigned to the object space and transition from the two-dimensional object space to the three-dimensional world space upon the detection of a space transition event. In some cases, a dual representation of the virtual object may be used to detect interactions between the virtual object and other virtual objects in both the world space and the object space.

Mechanism to give holographic objects saliency in multiple spaces

A head mounted display (HMD) device is configured with a sensor package that enables head tracking to determine the device user's proximity to virtual objects in a mixed reality or virtual reality environment. A fade volume including concentrically-arranged volumetric shells is placed around the user including a near shell that is closest to the user, and a far shell that is farthest from the user. When a virtual object is beyond the far shell, the HMD device renders the object with full opacity (i.e., with no transparency). As the user moves towards a virtual object and it intersects the far shell, its opacity begins to fade out with increasing transparency to reveal the background behind it. The transparency of the virtual object increases as the object gets closer to the near shell and the object becomes fully transparent when the near shell reaches it so that the background becomes fully visible.

Smart transparency for virtual objects

An HMD device with a see-through display and depth sensing capability is configured to selectively dim or fade out a display of a virtual reality environment to enable a user to see the real world without obstruction by the virtual world when a distance between the user and a real world object is determined to be less than a threshold distance. The current height of the user's head (i.e., the distance from head to ground) may be utilized when performing the dimming/fading so that different threshold distances can be used depending on whether the user is standing or seated.

Anti-trip when immersed in a virtual reality environment

A system and method are disclosed for displaying virtual objects in a mixed reality environment in a way that is optimal and most comfortable for a user to interact with the virtual objects. When a user is not focused on the virtual object, which may be a heads-up display, or HUD, the HUD may remain body locked to the user. As such, the user may explore and interact with a mixed reality environment presented by the head mounted display device without interference from the HUD. When a user wishes to view and/or interact with the HUD, the user may look at the HUD. At this point, the HUD may change from a body locked virtual object to a world locked virtual object. The user is then able to view and interact with the HUD from different positions and perspectives of the HUD.

Hybrid world/body locked HUD on an HMD

A method and apparatus for the creation of a perspective-locked virtual object having in world space. The virtual object may be consumed) by another user with a consumption device at a location, position, and orientation which is the same as, or proximate to, the location, position, and orientation where the virtual object is created. Objects may have one, few or many allowable consumption locations, positions, and orientations defined by its creator.

Virtual object orientation and visualization

An application running on a computing platform that employs three-dimensional (3D) modeling is extended using a virtual viewport into which 3D holograms are rendered by a mixed-reality head mounted display (HMD) device. The HMD device user can position the viewport to be rendered next to a real world 2D monitor and use it as a natural extension of the 3D modeling application. For example, the user can interact with modeled objects in mixed-reality and move objects between the monitor and the viewport. The 3D modeling application and HMD device are configured to exchange scene data for modeled objects (such as geometry, lighting, rotation, scale) and user interface parameters (such as mouse and keyboard inputs). The HMD device implements head tracking to determine where the user is looking so that user inputs are appropriately directed to the monitor or viewport.

Three-dimensional mixed-reality viewport

A head-mounted display system includes a see-through display that is configured to visually augment an appearance of a physical environment to a user viewing the physical environment through the see-through display. Graphical content presented via the see-through display is created by modeling the ambient lighting conditions of the physical environment.

Virtual light in augmented reality

A computing system and method for producing and consuming metadata within multi-dimensional data is provided. The computing system comprising a see-through display, a sensor system, and a processor configured to: in a recording phase, generate an annotation at a location in a three dimensional environment, receive, via the sensor system, a stream of telemetry data recording movement of a first user in the three dimensional environment, receive a message to be recorded from the first user, and store, in memory as annotation data for the annotation, the stream of telemetry data and the message, and in a playback phase, display a visual indicator of the annotation at the location, receive a selection of the visual indicator by a second user, display a simulacrum superimposed onto the three dimensional environment and animated according to the telemetry data, and present the message via the animated simulacrum.

Producing and consuming metadata within multi-dimensional data

An HMD device is configured to check the placement of newly introduced objects in a virtual reality environment such as interactive elements like menus, widgets, and notifications to confirm that the objects are significantly present within the user's field of view. If the intended original placement would locate the object outside the field of view, the HMD device relocates the object so that a portion of the object is viewable at the edge of the HMD display closest to its original placement. Such smart placement of virtual objects enables the user to readily discover new objects when they are introduced into the virtual reality environment, and then interact with the objects within a range of motions and/or head positions that is comfortable to support a more optimal interaction and user experience.

Smart placement of virtual objects to stay in the field of view of a head mounted display

An HMD device renders a virtual reality environment in which areas of the real world are masked out so that real world objects such as computer monitors, doors, people, faces, and the like appear visible to the device user and no holographic or virtual reality content is rendered over the visible objects. The HMD device includes a sensor package to support application of surface reconstruction techniques to dynamically detect edges and surfaces of the real world objects and keep objects visible on the display as the user changes position or head pose or when the real world objects move or their positions are changed. The HMD device can expose controls to enable the user to select which real world objects are visible in the virtual reality environment.

Virtual reality environment with real world objects

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Ben J Sugden