Niantic, Inc.

Peter James Turner

Si Ying Diana Hu

Gandeevan Raghuraman

Benjamin Peake

Jaime Ivan Cervantes

Anubhav Ashok

Dharini Krishna

David Grayson Smith

Fang-Pen Lin

Paulo Francisco Zemek

Anvith Ekkati

Purna Sowmya Munukutla

Si Ying Hu

Diana Hu Si Ying

A system enables an arbitrary number of items to be indexed in a geographic region that provides a predictable query response time across a sharded database. Items indexed to the geographic region are stored on a single shard and additional items are added to that shard as long as an overflow condition indicative of undesirable query response times is not met. If the overflow condition is met the system expands the storage of items indexed to the geographic region to one or more additional shards in order to maintain predictable query response times. The system may maintain a shard count representing the total number of shards being used to store items corresponding to a geographic region, which can be used to query one or more relevant shards. The system may apply deterministic hashing in order to evenly distribute shards across database nodes of the sharded database.

Sharded storage of geolocated data with predictable query response times

An augmented reality system generates computer-mediated reality on a client device. The client device has sensors including a camera configured to capture image data of an environment. The augmented reality system generates a first 3D map of the environment around the client device based on captured image data. The server receives image data captured from a second client device in the environment and generates a second 3D map of the environment. The server links the first and second 3D together in a singular 3D map. The singular 3D map may be a graphical representation of the real world using nodes that represent 3D maps generated by image data captured at client devices and edges that represent transformations between the nodes.

Merging local maps from mapping devices

Systems and methods for providing a shared augmented reality environment are provided. In particular, the latency of communication is reduced by using a peer-to-peer protocol to determine where to send datagrams. Datagrams describe actions that occur within the shared augmented reality environment, and the processing of datagrams is split between an intermediary node of a communications network (e.g., a cell tower) and a server. As a result, the intermediary node may provide updates to a local state of a client device when a datagram is labelled peer-to-peer, and otherwise provides updates to the master state on the server. This may reduce the latency of communication and allow users of the location-based parallel reality game to see actions occur more quickly in the shared augmented reality environment.

Low latency datagram-responsive computer network protocol

Processing of actions within a shared augmented reality experience is split between an edge node of a communications network (e.g., a cell tower) and a server. As a result, computation of the current state may be sharded naturally based on real-world location, with state updates generally provided by the edge node and the server providing conflict resolution based on a master state (e.g., where actions connected to different edge nodes potentially interfere with each other). In this way, latency may be reduced as game actions are communicated between clients connected to the same edge node using a peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol without routing the actions via the game server.

Augmented reality mobile edge computing

A dataflow hierarchy protocol is implemented by one or more devices to optimize how the one or more devices process datagrams for network communications. The dataflow hierarchy considers various available network pathways for dataflow. A device implementing the dataflow hierarchy selects one or more of the available network pathways to provide low latency in data communication with other devices. The device may sample various available network pathways to determine pathway metrics (e.g., latency) and select one or more network pathways based on the metrics. The available network pathways can include pathways through one or more intermediary nodes, such as pathways through a game server, pathways through a cell tower, and pathways through a network.

Data hierarchy protocol for data transmission pathway selection

A system and method determine the location of a device. The device collects sensor data using one or more sensors. Based on the sensor data, one or more localization models are selected from a plurality of localization models. The selected models are applied to generate one or more candidate locations. The current location of the device is determined based on the one or more candidate locations.

Multi-sync ensemble model for device localization

A system and method determine the location of a device. The device collects sensor data using one or more sensors. Based on the sensor data, one or more localization models are selected from a plurality of localization models. The selected models are applied to generate one or more potential locations. The current location of the device is determined based on the one or more potential locations.

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Redwood City, CA, United States of America

Peter James Turner