Niantic, Inc.

Si Ying Diana Hu

Peter James Turner

Ross Edward Finman

Gandeevan Raghuraman

Anubhav Ashok

Anvith Ekkati

Jaime Ivan Cervantes

Benjamin Peake

David Grayson Smith

Siddhant Jain

Rong Yuan

Dharini Krishna

Purna Sowmya Munukutla

A system and method for determining a location of a client device is described herein. In particular, a client device receives images captured by a camera at the client device. The client device identifies features in the images. The features may be line junctions, lines, curves, or any other features found in images. The client device retrieves a 3D map of the environment from the map database and compares the identified features to the 3D map of the environment, which includes map features such as map line junctions, map lines, map curves, and the like. The client device identifies a correspondence between the features identified from the images and the map features and determines a location of the client device in the real world based on the correspondence. The client device may display visual data representing a location in a virtual world corresponding to the location in the real world.

Location determination and mapping with 3D line junctions

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 and a location sensor to capture location data describing a geolocation of the client device. The client device creates a three-dimensional (3-D) map with the image data and the location data for use in generating virtual objects to augment reality. The client device transmits the created 3-D map to an external server that may utilize the 3-D map to update a world map stored on the external server. The external server sends a local portion of the world map to the client device. The client device determines a distance between the client device and a mapping point to generate a computer-mediated reality image at the mapping point to be displayed on the client device.

Cloud assisted generation of local map data using novel viewpoints

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 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

Cloud enabled augmented reality

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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Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Si Ying Diana Hu