Ailive, Inc.

Dana Wilkinson

Charles Musick, Jr

William Robert Powers, Iii

Stuart Reynolds

Wei Yen

Xiaoyuan Tu

Ian Wright

Robert M Kay

Youding Zhu

Yoichiro Kawano

John Funge

Anupam Chakravorty

Daniel Dobson

Techniques for interpreting motions of a motion-sensitive device are described to allow natural and intuitive interfaces for controlling an application (e.g. video game). A motion-sensitive device includes inertial and generates sensor signals sufficient to derive positions and orientations of the device in six degrees of freedom. The motion of the device in six degrees of freedom is tracked by analyzing sensor data from the inertial sensors in conjunction with data from a secondary source that may be a camera or a non-inertial sensor. Different techniques are provided to correct or minimize errors in deriving the positions and orientations of the device. These techniques include 'stop' detection, back tracking, extrapolation of sensor data beyond the sensor ranges, and using constraints from multi trackable objects in an application being interfaced with the motion-sensitive device.

Method and system for tracking motion-sensing device

Techniques for performing accurate and automatic head pose estimation are disclosed. According to one aspect of the techniques, head pose estimation is integrated with a scale-invariant head tracking method along with facial features detected from a located head in images. Thus the head pose estimation works efficiently even when there are large translational movements resulting from the head motion. Various computation techniques are used to optimize the process of estimation so that the head pose estimation can be applied to control one or more objects in a virtual environment and virtual character gaze control.

Method and system for head tracking and pose estimation

Techniques for selecting a portion of a 3D virtual environment are disclosed, where the portion of the 3D virtual environment may be one or more objects in the 3D virtual environment or one of scenes in the 3D virtual environment. A motion sensitive device (controller) is used. The controller generates sensor data sufficient to derive position and orientation of the controller in six degrees of freedom. In one embodiment, when selecting the portion of the 3D virtual environment, the controller generates a ray to an interaction of a display screen provided to display the 3D virtual environment, wherein the ray is further projected into the 3D virtual environment by a ray tracing technique as if the user had a real laser pointer that crosses from the physical world into the 3D virtual environment being displayed. Further a user is optionally to use a secondary input device to select one or more points or objects in a 3D space to control a distance along the ray being used.

Method and system for making a selection in 3D virtual environment

Techniques for controlling motions using motion recognizers generated in advance by users are described. According to embodiment, the motion recognizers created by end users are utilized to control virtual objects displayed in a virtual environment. By manipulating one or more motion sensitive devices, end users could command what the objects to do in the virtual environment. Motion signals from each of the motion sensitive devices are recognized in accordance with the motion recognizers created in advance by the users. One or more of the motion signals are at the same time utilized to tune the motion recognizers or create additional motion recognizers. As a result, the motion recognizers are constantly updated to be more accommodating to the user(s).

Systems and methods for utilizing personalized motion control in virtual environment

Techniques for using a motion sensitive device as a controller are disclosed. A motion controller as an input/control device is used to control an existing electronic device (a.k.a., controlled device) previously configured for taking inputs from a pre-defined controlling device. The signals from the input device are in a different form from the pre-defined controlling device. According to one aspect of the present invention, the controlled device was designed to respond to signals from a pre-defined controlling device (e.g., a touch-screen device). The inputs from the motion controller are converted into touch-screen like signals that are then sent to the controlled device or programs being executed in the controlled device to cause the behavior of the controlled device to change or respond thereto, without reconfiguration of the applications running on the controlled device.

Motion control used as controlling device

A personal control mechanism is disclosed. The personal control mechanism includes at least one controller with full functionalities in a sense that the controller does not need any attachment and is operable with one hand to fully control an interactive environment being shown. According to one embodiment of the controller, the controller has a top surface including a number of buttons and a joystick operable by a finger of one hand, and a bottom surface including a trigger operable by another finger of the hand. A housing of the controller is sized comfortably to fit into either hand of a user and has a holding portion designed in a way that the trigger, the buttons and the joystick are readily operated when the holding portion is being held in either hand.

Game controllers with full controlling mechanisms

Techniques for providing compatibility between two different game controllers are disclosed. When a new or more advanced controller is introduced, it is important that such a new controller works with a system originally configured for an existing or old controller. The new controller may provide more functionalities than the old one does. In some cases, the new controller provides more sensing signals than the old one does. The new controller is configured to work with the system to transform the sensing signals therefrom to masquerade as though they were coming from the old controller. The transforming of the sensing signals comprises: replicating operational characteristics of the old controller, and relocating virtually the sensing signals to appear as though the sensing signals were generated from inertial sensors located in a certain location in the new controller responsive to a certain location of the inertial sensors in the old controller.

Method and system providing compatibility between two different controllers

Techniques for interpreting orientation invariant motion are disclosed. Unlike a prior art controller that has a specific physical design to induce or force a user to grip the controller in a consistent way, a disclosed controller does not have such a physical design and allows a user to grip the controller in any way that is comfortable to the user. One or more transformations or rotations are designed to transform or rotate readings from inertial sensors housed in the controller to readings independent from how the controller is being gripped by a user.

Method and apparatus for interpreting orientation invariant motion

Techniques for controlling movements of an object in a videogame are disclosed. At least one video camera is used at a location where at least a player plays the videogame, the video camera captures various movements of the player. A designated device (e.g., a game console or computer) is configured to the video data to derive the movements of the player from the video data, and cause the object to respond to the movements of the player. When the designated device receives video data from more than one locations, players at the respective locations can play a networked videogame that may be built upon a shared space representing some or all of the real-world spaces of the locations. The video game is embedded with objects, some of which respond to the movements of the players and interact with other objects in accordance with rules of the video games.

Method and system for controlling movements of objects in a videogame

Techniques for supporting generalized motion recognition are disclosed. A set of motion recognizers created from training sets of labeled processed motion signals is provided, each of the component outputs is transformed. When a motion signal including two or more component outputs is received, the component outputs are transformed into device-independent motion signals, where each of the component outputs describes a different component of a motion made by a user. The motion recognizers are applied to the motion signal to build generalized motion recognizers responsive to the motion sensitive device that has generated the motion signal.

Systems and methods for supporting generalized motion recognition

Techniques for performing anytime motion recognition are disclosed. Based on a motion signal received from a motion-sensitive device being manipulated by a user as a way to interact with an application, a processing unit is configured to a set of prototypes included in a motion recognizer to generate a recognition signal from the motion signal in response to the motion recognizer. A prototype is eliminated out of the set of the prototypes from further consideration when a corresponding running distance of the prototype to the motion signal is beyond a predefined measurement so that the motion recognition speeds up as time passes.

Systems and methods for performing anytime motion recognition

Universal remote controller

Techniques for performing motion recognition using generalized motion recognition capability are disclosed. At least two types of sensors are used to generate sensor signals about a motion made by a user. The sensor signals are then transformed to device-independent motion signals that may be used to build generalized motion recognizers or used with one or more generalized motion recognizers responsive to the sensors. At least one of objects in a virtual interactive environment is responsive to a recognition signal determined from the motion signal and the generalized motion recognizers.

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Dana Wilkinson