Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited

Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited

Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

Simon Mark Benson

Ian Henry Bickerstaff

Sharwin Winesh Raghoebardajal

Tomohiro Oto

Sharwin Winesh Raghoebardayal

Patrick John Connor

Oliver Mark Wright

Simon John Hall

Darren Myatt

Jeremy David Ashforth

Ian Michael Hocking

Nigel Kershaw

Nicholas Ward-Foxton

Oliver Wright

Mick Hocking

Iain Bickerstaff

Methods and apparatus provide for generating an image by way of acquiring information relating to at least one of a position and a rotation of a camera. The image is generated for display on a display unit. A rate at which the image is generated is at a first frequency, which is lower than a second frequency corresponding to a frame rate of the display unit.

Image generation apparatus and image generation method using frequency lower than display frame rate

A system for displaying a mobile device screen comprises a head mounted display for displaying a first content to a user, a video camera mounted on the head mounted display, the video camera operable to capture a video image of a scene in front of the user, a region detection processor operable to detect a region of the captured video image comprising a mobile device screen, and an image processor operable to replace a corresponding region of the displayed first content in the head mounted display with the detected region of the captured video image comprising the mobile device screen.

Head mounted display and method

Methods and apparatus provide for generating an image by way of acquiring information relating to at least one of a position and a rotation of a camera operated by a user. The image is generated for display on a display unit viewed by the user. A rate at which the image is generated is at a first frequency, which is lower than a second frequency corresponding to a frame rate of the display unit.

A virtual reality apparatus includes a head mountable display (HMD); a detector to detect a deviation of a current orientation of the HMD from a base orientation of the HMD; and a generator to generate content for presentation to the wearer of the HMD to prompt the wearer of the HMD to turn his head so as to change the orientation of the HMD towards the base orientation.

Virtual reality

A controller for determining a displacement of a control stick and an applied pressure on the control stick comprises at least a first control stick, one or more sensors configured to sense a pressure applied to at least one control stick and to generate corresponding pressure information, first circuitry configured to receive displacement information associated with a physical displacement of the control stick, second circuitry configured to receive from one or more of the sensors pressure information associated with the pressure applied to the control stick, and third circuitry configured to determine the displacement of the control stick and the applied pressure on the control stick; wherein at least a first sensor is configured to sense the pressure applied when the physical displacement of the control stick reaches a displacement limit.

Input method and apparatus

A head-mountable display (HMD) for use with a processing device, the HMD comprising a display unit for displaying image content to the user, and a directional airflow unit operable to generate a directional airflow in accordance with control data corresponding to an appropriate airflow for content to be displayed on the HMD.

Head-mountable apparatus and systems

Methods and apparatus provide for receiving an image to be displayed on the head-mounted display unit generated in a first frequency by an image generation apparatus using information relating to at least one of a position and a rotation of the head of a user who wears a head-mounted display unit, where the information is acquired at a certain point of time; correcting the image using updated information relating to at least one of the position and the rotation at a different point of time, where the receiving and correcting includes receiving updated information relating to at least one of a position and a rotation in a second frequency corresponding to a frame rate of the head-mounted display unit, and performing multiple times of correction of the image in the first frequency using a plurality of the updated information relating to at least one of the position and the rotation received in the second frequency higher than the first frequency.

Image generation apparatus and image generation method

Virtual reality apparatus includes a display generator to generate images of a virtual environment, including a virtual representation of a display object and at least part of an avatar, for display to a user; a haptic interface including one or more actuators to provide a physical interaction with the user in response to a haptic interaction signal; a detector arrangement configured to detect two or more haptic detections applicable to a current configuration of the avatar relative to the object in the virtual environment; and a haptic generator to generate the haptic interaction signal in dependence upon the two or more haptic detections.

Methods and apparatus for generating haptic interaction for virtual reality

Methods and apparatus provide for acquiring information relating to at least one of a position and a rotation of a user's head wearing a head-mounted display; generating an image for the head-mounted display using information relating to at least one of a position and a rotation acquired at a certain point of time; and a correcting process includes receiving updated information relating to at least one of a position and a rotation at a different point of time and correcting the image generated using the updated information. The generating the image includes using the information relating to at least one of the position and the rotation in a first frequency; and the correcting includes receiving updated information relating to at least one of a position and a rotation in a second frequency corresponding to a frame rate of the head-mounted display. The correcting includes multiple times of correction of the image generated in the first frequency using a plurality of the updated information in the second frequency, which is higher than the first frequency.

A processing system adapted for use in a gaming environment is configured to detect when a user might accidentally drop an input device, such as a handheld game controller. The processing system includes an input device, a processing unit and a warning unit. The input device has one or more pressure sensors operable to sense pressure inputs from a user. The processing unit is operable to identify an imminent dropping of the input device from measurements obtained by the pressure sensors. And the warning unit is operable to provide a warning to the user when the processing unit identifies an imminent drop of the input device.

System and method for identifying imminent dropping of a device and providing a warning of the imminent dropping

A head mountable display (HMD) includes a camera operable to capture images of a peripheral and/or control device in use by a wearer of the HMD. A detector of the HMD is configured to detect occlusions in a captured image of the peripheral and/or control device. And an image renderer of the HMD is configured to render a virtual version of the peripheral and/or control device for display to the HMD wearer and to render a representation of a user's hand at a position of a detected occlusion.

A method of operation of a head mountable display (HMD) system, in which stereoscopic images are displayed with respect to a virtual display screen (VDS) position, is provided. The method includes setting a VDS position for a stereoscopic image for display in response to a depth parameter of a region of interest (ROI) in respect of the stereoscopic image for display. The method also includes generating the stereoscopic image for display having an image parallax appropriate to the VDS position set by the setting step.

Head-mountable display system

A position and rotation information acquisition unitacquires information relating to a position and a rotation of the head of a user who wears a head-mounted display unit. A coordinate transformation unitand a panorama image processing unitgenerate an image to be displayed on the head-mounted display unit using the information relating to the position and the rotation acquired at a certain point of time by the position and rotation information acquisition unit. A correction processing unitcorrects the generated image using updated information relating to the position and the rotation at a different point of time.

A head mountable display (HMD) system in which the size and/or distance from the viewer of a virtual screen for display of video material depends upon one or more of the following:

Handling different input signals

A head mountable display (HMD) is provided that has a head motion detection function and one or more operations that depend upon detected head motion. Detected head motion is stored as motion data in memory. The way in which detected head motion is applied to a current operation depends upon the stored motion data. In one embodiment, the HMD includes a gaze detector configured to detect eye orientation of a user of the user so as to detect image regions at which the user is looking, and a detector configured to detect item data indicative of items represented by the detected image regions.

Growing community of inventors

London, United Kingdom

Simon Mark Benson