Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

Sony Corporation

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

Sony Corpotation

Hiroshi Matsuike

Hitoshi Ishikawa

Koichi Yoshida

Tomohito Ito

Yasushi Okumura

Kazuyuki Arimatsu

Chihiro Kanno

Junichi Hosono

Naoki Hirai

A virtual object is arranged in a virtual space, and an image in the virtual space is generated to be presented to a user. In addition, information indicating an operation from the user is received, a virtual manipulator for operating the virtual object is displayed in the virtual space in accordance with the received information indicating the operation, the magnitude of a virtual force applied to the virtual object by the virtual manipulator is determined, and information indicating the determined magnitude of the force is presented to the user.

Information processing apparatus, information processing method, and program

A user can intuitively manipulate an object in a virtual reality space while the amount of computation necessary to realize the manipulation is suppressed. An image processing apparatus acquires a manipulation indicating bending of a finger of a hand, detects a contact between the finger and an object in a virtual space, selects, on the basis of an amount of the manipulation indicating the bending of the finger of the hand after the detection of the contact between the object and the finger, whether to set a constraint condition for fixing a relative position between the object and the hand to which the finger belongs or exert a frictional force between the object and the finger, computes a motion of the object on the basis of the selection, and draws the object whose motion is computed.

Image processing apparatus, image processing method, and program

Objects are moved naturally while occurrence of vibration due to contact between a movable object and a fixed object is suppressed. An image processing device obtains a movement toward a given direction of at least one point of a first object in a virtual space, suppresses the movement of the at least one point of the first object, when a second object that is brought into contact with the first object and whose angle formed with a direction of a reaction force to the first object and the given direction falls within a predetermined range is present, and a movement of the second object is limited in the virtual space, calculates a motion of the first object on the basis of the suppressed movement of the at least one point, and draws an image including the first object on the basis of the calculated motion.

Image processing device, image processing method, and program for suppressing movement of an object in virtual space

While a user is enabled to intuitively manipulate an object in a virtual reality space, the amount of computation necessary for realizing these manipulations is reduced. An image processing apparatus acquires a motion of a finger of a hand, detects contact between the finger and an object in a virtual space, detects the number of fingers touching the object in the virtual space and, on the basis of the detected number of fingers, determines an interaction parameter for obtaining an interaction between the finger and the object, computes a motion of the object on the basis of the determined interaction parameter, and draws an object with the motion computed.

Methods and apparatus provide for, at each of plural calculation timings, associating pieces of position information indicating the positions of objects in a virtual space at the calculation timing with leaves and creates a complete binary tree in which position information reflecting pieces of the position information of child nodes is associated with an internal node, and a node shuffling section that shuffles 2&#xb7;2(n&#x2265;1) child nodes regarding each group of 2nodes on the basis of the position information associated with each of the 2&#xb7;2child nodes belonging to the 2nodes in each layer sequentially from the immediately-upper layer of the lowermost layer in the complete binary tree; and carrying out collision determination between objects by using the complete binary tree resulting from the shuffling by the node shuffling section.

Simulation method and device for determining collision between objects

To provide an operation method for intuitively moving a viewpoint in a virtual space that is different from a method for inputting a moving direction by a button or stick operation. An image processing apparatus includes real position acquisition means that acquires a real position instructed by a user in a real space, representative position determination means that determines, on the basis of movement of the acquired real position during a predetermined input, a virtual representative position that is a position representing the user in a virtual space, and rendering means that renders a three-dimensional image based on the determined virtual representative position.

A simulation apparatus which simulates a position of each of plural objects, which move in a virtual space together with time, at each of plural time points of calculation. The apparatus includes: an object pair information acquisition unit acquiring plural pieces of information of object pairs each including, as components thereof, two objects which contact with each other at each of the plural time points of calculation; an allocation unit allocating, at each of the plural time points of calculation, each of the plural object pairs to one of plural groups such that two or more object pairs which include a common object do not belong to the same group; and a calculation unit calculating, at each of the plural time points of calculation, an influence of contact of two objects included in each of the plural object pairs upon positions of the two objects.

Simulation apparatus, controlling method, program and information storage medium for the simulation apparatus

A simulation apparatus which simulates a position of each of a plurality of objects, which move in a virtual space together with time, at each of a plural calculation time is disclosed. The apparatus includes: an object connection block for applying, to each object of each three or more objects contacting with each other at each of the plural calculation time points, a pointer value indicative of a contact destination object with which the object is in contact determining one of the three or more objects as a terminal end to connect the objects; and a pointer value updating block for repeating a pointer value updating process, by which the pointer value of each object is updated to the pointer value of the contact destination object indicated by the pointer value until the pointer values of all of the objects come to indicate the object of the terminal end.

Methods and apparatus for simulating positions of a plurality of objects in a virtual space, controlling method, program and information storage medium

Disclosed herein is an image processing apparatus including: a nearness computation block configured to compute a nearness between a representative position representative of a user and a position of an object; a movement determination block configured to determine a movement of the object in a virtual space with an accuracy corresponding to the computed nearness; and a drawing block configured to draw an image on the basis of the determined movement.

An image processing device includes an inscribed sphere acquiring section that acquires an inscribed sphere which intersects line segment and is inscribed in torus in calculation of an intersection of the torus and a line segment, a calculating section that calculates an intersection of the inscribed sphere and the line segment, a reacquiring section that acquires the position of a new inscribed sphere in such a manner that a contact circle between the new inscribed sphere and the torus gets closer to the intersection, a recalculating section that calculates an intersection of the new inscribed sphere and the line segment, and an intersection output section that outputs the intersection of the torus and the line segment on the basis of an intersection of the inscribed sphere and the line segment obtained by at least one time of calculation of the intersection of the new inscribed sphere and the line segment.

Image processing device, image processing method, and program

An information processing device includes target object information obtaining unit configured to obtain target object information indicating a position and an area of a target object in a virtual space, surface information obtaining unit configured to obtain surface information indicating a position and an area of a thickness area that is defined by a surface in the virtual space and a predetermined thickness imparted to the surface, and collision determining unit configured to carry out collision determination, based on the target object information and the surface information, so as to determine whether the target object has collided against the surface.

Information processing device, information processing method, computer readable storage medium storing information processing program, thickness area setting device, thickness area setting method, and computer readable storage medium storing thickness area setting program

Provided is an image generating device for generating an image of an object including a plurality of elements connected to one another. The image generating device includes: a calculating section for iteratively calculating a motion of each element of the plurality of elements based on a physical constraint condition of the each element with respect to another connected element; a parent-child information acquiring section for acquiring parent-child information corresponding to a connection between the each element and the another element based on information indicating an element having a predetermined relationship with another object; a correcting section for correcting a position of a child element with respect to a parent element based on the parent-child information and the motion of the each element; and an image generating section for generating information on the image of the object based on the corrected position of the each element.

Image generating device, image generating method, and non-transitory information storage medium

An object placement managing unit changes at least one of a position and a direction of a virtual object based on a value of a parameter associated with a physical quantity that is an attribute of the virtual object. The object placement managing unit determines a first change, which corresponds to a user's operation, in a first physical quantity of the virtual object. The object placement managing unit determines a second change in a second physical quantity. The second change corresponds to and is different from the first change. The object placement managing unit changes a value of a parameter based on the first change and the second change. The object placement managing unit changes, after the value of the parameter is changed, at least one of the position and the direction of the virtual object based on the changed value of the parameter.

Program, information storage medium, information processing system, and information processing method for controlling a movement of an object placed in a virtual space

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Tokyo, Japan

Hiroshi Matsuike