Valve Corporation

Yates, Alan

Selan, Jeremy

Jeremy Adam Selan

Ivan Andrew McCracken

Clement Gallois

Carl Samuel Conlee, Iv

Quentin Smith

Dustin Michael Horn

Alan Yates

Eric James Hope

Philip Bryan

Scott Richard Britt

Joshua Mark Hudman

Yasser Malaika

David Sawyer

Tristan Reidford

Duane Martin Evans

Montgomery Vincent Goodson

Optical positional tracking systems that may be used in virtual reality (VR)/augmented reality (AR) applications are described. Exemplary implementations comprise one or more receivers and one or more transmitters. Exemplary transmitters contain two orthogonal rotors that each emit a fan-shaped laser beam. Each beam is swept as the rotors are spun at constant speed. Exemplary optical receivers can be relatively small, and mounted at convenient locations on the VR display. These receivers consist of small optical detectors that may be mounted on head-mounted VR displays. Exemplary systems determine position by measuring the time at which each swept beam crosses each receiver/detector.

Positional tracking systems and methods

The disclosure relates generally to techniques for determining pupil location of a display device's user via imaging sensors on the display device, and using that information to verify and/or correct positioning of the display device or its internal components. The display device may be a head-mounted display ('HMD') device with display panels separated from a wearer's eyes via intervening lenses, with the sensors including optical flow sensor integrated circuits mounted on or near at least one of the display panels to capture images of the wearer's eye locations through the lenses, and with the correction to the positioning including modifications to the alignment or other positioning of the HMD device on the wearer user's head and/or its internal components within the HMD device (e.g., based on automated control of motors on the HMD device) to reflect a target alignment of the wearer's eyes relative to displayed information.

Using detected pupil location to align optical components of a head-mounted display

Headset speaker

Headset

A head-mounted display (HMD) system may include a HMD with a housing and a pair of display panels, mounted within the housing, that are counterrotated in orientation. A compositor of the HMD system may also be configured to provide camera pose data with counterrotated camera orientations to an executing application (e.g., a video game application), and to resample the frames received from the application, with or without rotational adjustments in the clockwise and counterclockwise directions depending on whether the display panels of the HMD are upright-oriented or counterrotated in orientation. A combined approach may use the counterrotated camera orientations in combination with counterrotated display panels to provide a HMD with optimized display performance.

Counterrotation of display panels and/or virtual cameras in a HMD

Light output of a display can be dynamically adjusted on-the-fly. When implemented on a low-persistence display that supports a variable refresh rate, this dynamic light output adjustment maintains a constant brightness over a series of frames to eliminate flickering of the display. When pixel data of a given frame is output to a frame buffer for presenting an image on the display, a time difference between an illumination of the display's light emitting elements for a preceding frame and an upcoming illumination of the light emitting elements for the given frame may be determined, and this time difference is used to determine a value of a light output parameter. During presentation of the image on the display, the light emitting elements can be illuminated in accordance with the value of the light output parameter. This determination iterates over a series of frames to dynamically adjust the display's light output.

Display system with dynamic light output adjustment for maintaining constant brightness

Systems and methods for providing display panels with reduced visual artifacts. A display system is provided that includes a pixel array having a plurality of pixels arranged in rows and columns. The display system receives an image stream that includes a plurality of sets of image data that each represent an image to be sequentially presented by the display system. The data for each frame or set of image data is loaded into the pixel array according to a loading sequence with reduces the visual artifacts perceived by a viewer of the display system. The loading sequence may include an inside-out loading sequence which gives preference to a central region of the pixel array, a speculative preloading sequence which first loads portions of the pixel array with speculative data, or various combinations thereof.

Systems and methods to reduce visual artifacts in displays

Controller visualization systems and methods for use in virtual/augmented reality environments such as walk-around virtual reality environments are described. The virtual representation of a physical control device may be altered based on the context of the virtual environment. Certain embodiments combine the virtual rendering of the tracked control device with a real-time video representation of part of the operating space. In certain embodiments, the display of additional information relating to the function of interactive elements may be displayed based on context, such as when a specific action is required from a user in the virtual space.

Controller visualization in virtual and augmented reality environments

Methods and systems relating generally to information displays, and more particularly to systems and methods for setting or dynamically adjusting the illumination pulses of a display or portions of a display on an individual color channel (typically R, G, B) basis. The illumination pulses may be adjusted for a plurality of frames at once, or on a frame by frame basis. The illumination pulses may be controlled for an entire image frame, or the illumination pulse may be controlled on a finer basis, for instance on separate areas or sub-regions of a display. Such adjustments can lead to improved sharpness, brightness, or useable lifetime of the display, and can eliminate or reduce discrepancies of visual artifacts in the visual field by providing separate or variable duty cycle capability on an individual color channel basis to the display for use in combination with display images, particularly for use with close-eye display orientations such as those used in augmented reality or virtual reality applications.

Display with adjustable duty cycle for individual color channels

Growing community of inventors

Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Jeremy Adam Selan