This application claims priority under 35 USC §119 or §365 to Great Britain Patent Application No. 1319333.9 entitled “Controlling Display of Video Data” filed Nov. 1, 2013 by Engstrand et al., the disclosure of which is incorporate in its entirety.
Voice over internet protocol (“VoIP”) communication systems allow the user of a device to make calls across a communication network. To use VoIP, the user must install and execute client software on their device. The client software provides the VoIP connections as well as other functions such as registration and authentication. Advantageously, in addition to voice and video communication, the client may also provide video calling and instant messaging (“IM”). With video calling, the callers are able to view video images of the other party in addition to voice information. This enables a much more natural communication between the parties, as facial expressions are also communicated, thereby making video calls more comparable to a face-to-face conversation.
It is often desirable for a participant of a video call to communicate their geographical location to other participants of the video call. This can be implemented in a number of ways.
A first participant of a video call can attempt to verbally describe his location to a second participant of the video call.
It is also common for mobile devices, to comprise location determination functionality to determine the geographic location of the mobile device. This geographic location information can be used by a mapping application executed on the mobile device to display the geographic location of the mobile device to a user of the mobile device.
A first participant of a video call can launch a mapping application on their device. Once launched, the first participant can use the mapping application to display their geographical location. The first participant may then verbally describe their location to the second participant using the displayed geographical location information on the display of the first participant's device. Alternatively, whilst a first participant of a video call is verbally describing his location to a second participant, the second participant can launch a mapping application on their device. The second participant can then attempt to determine the location of the first participant using the verbal description provided by the first participant and the mapping application executed on their device.
According to one aspect there is provided a user terminal comprising: a network interface; a display; and a communications module configured to: receive video data from at least one further user terminal over a communications network during a communication event with said at least one further user terminal via said network interface; receive location information from the at least one further user terminal over the communications network via the network interface; in response to receiving the location information, display a map on the display, the map displaying a plurality of locations; and for each of the at least one further user terminal, control the video data received from the further user terminal to be displayed on the display to provide a visual indication of the location of the further user terminal at one of said plurality of locations.
According to one aspect there is provided a method implemented at a user terminal, the method comprising: receiving video data from at least one further user terminal over a communications network during a communication event with said at least one further user terminal via a network interface of the user terminal. The communication event may for example be a video call. The method further comprises receiving location information from the at least one further user terminal over the communications network via the network interface. The location information may comprise latitude and longitude information. The method further comprises, in response to receiving the location information, displaying a map on a display of the user terminal the map displaying a plurality of locations, and for each of the at least one further user terminal, controlling the video data received from the further user terminal to be displayed on the display to provide a visual indication of the location of the further user terminal at one of the plurality of locations.
According to another aspect there is provided a computer program product, the computer program product being embodied on a non-transient computer-readable medium and configured so as when executed on a processor of a device to performs the steps of any of the methods described herein.
This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.
For a better understanding of the described embodiments and to show how the same may be put into effect, reference will now be made, by way of example, to the following drawings in which:
a and 4b show how received video data may be displayed to provide a visual indication of the location of one or more participants of a video call.
In known implementations, when a participant of a video call communicates their geographical location to a recipient participant of the video call, at any one time the recipient's device displays one type of data output from a single application executed on the recipient device.
For example, referring to the example described above where a first participant of a video call can attempt to verbally describe his location to a second participant of the video call. The second participant's device displays only video data output from a communication client application. It may be difficult for the second participant to accurately determine the location of the first participant, particularly if the first participant's description of his location lacks sufficient information to enable the second participant to determine the location of the first participant. This situation may arise if the first participant is in a geographical location which is unfamiliar to either or both of the first participant and the second participant.
Similarly, when a first participant of a video call launches a mapping application on their device to display their geographical location, and verbally describes their location to the second participant using the displayed geographical location information on the display 204 of the first participant's device. The second participant's device displays only video data output from a communication client application.
Likewise, when a first participant of a video call is verbally describing his location to a second participant, the second participant's device displays video data output from a communication client application. Then if the second participant launches a mapping application on their device to assist them in determining the location of the first participant, the second participant's device stops displaying the video data output from the communication client application and displays geographical location information output from the mapping application. After the second participant closing the mapping application the second participant's device re-commences displaying video data output from the communication client application. At any one time, the second participant's device, displays one type of data output from a single application executed on the second participant's device.
When the first or second participant uses a mapping application during the video call, this is disruptive to the video call as the eye-contact between the first participant and the second participant is interrupted due to a participant having to move from looking into a camera on the participant's device to looking at a display on the participant's device. Furthermore this relies on either the first participant accurately relaying the geographical location information displayed on the display of the first participant's device verbally to the second participant to enable second participant to determine the location of the first participant, or the second participant being able to use the mapping application to determine the location of the first participant based on first participant's verbal describe of their location.
In embodiments of the disclosure, both geographical location information and video data are simultaneously displayed on a user terminal to visually indicate the location of further user terminals from which the location information and video data is received.
Embodiments will now be described by way of example only.
With increasing mobile bandwidths, there is increasing interest in providing packet-based video calls via client applications running on mobile devices such as Internet-enabled mobile phones. These mobile devices comprise transceivers such as short-range RF transceivers operating on one or more unlicensed bands for accessing the Internet via wireless access points (e.g. of Wi-Fi access points of WLAN networks), and/or cellular transceivers operating on one or more licensed bands for accessing the Internet via a packet-based service of a cellular network such as GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) or HSPA (High Speed Packet Access).
The user terminal 102 executes a communication client, provided by a software provider associated with the communication system 100. The communication client is a software program executed on a local processor in the user terminal 102 (i.e. a communications module). The client performs the processing required at the user terminal 102 in order for the user terminal 102 to transmit and receive data over the communication system 100. As is known in the art, the client executed at the user terminal 102 may be authenticated to communicate over the communication system through the presentation of digital certificates (e.g. to prove that user 104 is a genuine subscriber of the communication system—described in more detail in WO 2005/009019).
The user terminal 108 may correspond to the user terminal 102. The user terminal 108 executes, on a local processor, a communication client which corresponds to the communication client executed at the user terminal 102. The client at the user terminal 108 performs the processing required to allow the user 110 to communicate over the network 106 in the same way that the client at the user terminal 102 performs the processing required to allow the user 104 to communicate over the network 106. The user terminals 102 and 108 are end points in the communication system.
Also running on top of the OS 214 is a mapping module 228. The mapping module 228 provides a user interface which is displayed on display 204 for the first user 104 to interact with the mapping module 228. Once launched, the first user 104 may make an appropriate selection using the user interface provided by the mapping module 228 to display the geographical location of the first user 104. The mapping module 228 displays a map on the display 204 to display the geographical location of the first user 104. The mapping module 228 may support a plurality of zoom levels, such that the level of detail of the geographical location of the first user 104 can be increased or decreased by the first user 104. The mapping module 228 is configured to receive location information of the user terminal 102 from a location determination module 230 also running on top of the OS 214.
The location determination module 230 determines the location of the user terminal 102. The location determination module 230 uses geographic location technology for determining the location of the user terminal 102, in terms of geographic position relative to the surface of the earth; for example, a satellite based positioning system such as GPS (Global Positioning System, including potential variants such as assisted GPS or differential GPS), GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System) or Galileo; and/or trilateration (or more generally muiltilateration) relative to a plurality of different wireless base stations or access points having known locations; and/or a technique based on detecting signal strength relative to a known base station or access point. Other well-known methods may be used for the user terminal 102 to determine its location.
The mapping module 228 is also configured to receive location information of one or more other users of the communication system 100, as will be described in more detail below.
The user terminal 108 is implemented in the same way as user terminal 102 as described above, wherein the user terminal 108 may have corresponding elements to those described herein in relation to user terminal 102.
During a communication event (i.e. video call) between the first user terminal 102 and the second user terminal 108, the second user 110 at the second user terminal 108 may want to inform the first user 104 of the first user terminal 102 of his geographical location.
Reference is now made to
During the video call between the first user terminal 102 and the second user terminal 108, at step S302 first user terminal 102 receives, via the network interface 224, encoded video data transmitted from the second user terminal 108 (frames of image data captured by the camera 208 of the second user terminal 108) over the network 106. The I/O layer 218 of the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102 receives the incoming encoded video stream and decodes the encoded video stream. The client engine layer 220 controls the client user interface layer 222 to display the decoded video data to the first user 104 via the user interface of the client displayed on display 204.
During the video call between the first user terminal 102 and the second user terminal 108, the first user terminal may also receive, via the network interface 224, encoded audio data transmitted from the second user terminal 108 (captured by the microphone 212 of the second user terminal 108) over the network 106. The I/O layer 218 of the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102 receives the incoming encoded audio data and decodes the encoded audio data for output to speaker 210.
The user interface of the communication client executed on the second user terminal 108 enables the second user 110 to select to send their geographic position to the first user terminal 102 over the network 106 during the video call. The second user 110 may make such a selection in the user interface of the communication client using an input device of the second user terminal 108. For example, the second user 110 may select a button displayed in the user interface of the communication client executed on the second user terminal 108 or navigate through appropriate menus of the user interface of the communication client in order to select to send their geographic position to the first user terminal 102.
Upon the second user 110 selecting to send their geographic position to participants in the video call (i.e. the first user terminal 102) during the video call. The communication client executed on the second user terminal 108 requests location information from the location determination module 230 on the second user terminal 108. Upon receiving this request, the location determination module 230 on the second user terminal 108 determines the location of the second user terminal 108 and supplies this location information to the communication client executed on the second user terminal 108.
The communication client executed on the second user terminal 108 transmits the location information to the first user terminal 102 over the network 106 and is received at the first user terminal 102 via the network interface 224 of the first user terminal 102. The location information may comprise a longitude and latitude of the second user terminal 108. The location information may additionally comprise an altitude of the second user terminal 108.
In order to supply accurate location information to the first user terminal 102 the location determination module 230 on the second user terminal 108 may determine and supply location information to the communication client executed on the second user terminal 108 for transmission to the first user terminal 102 periodically. This enables, any change in location (i.e. movement) of the second user terminal 108 to be communicated to the first user terminal 102. Alternatively, after supplying location information to the communication client executed on the second user terminal 108, the location determination module 230 on the second user terminal 108 may only supply additional location information to the communication client executed on the second user terminal 108 for transmission to the first user terminal 102 if the location determination module 230 on the second user terminal 108 determines that the second user terminal 108 has moved.
The location information may be embedded into the video data transmitted from the second user terminal 108 to the first user terminal 102, such that the location information is sent on the same communication channel as the video data. Alternatively, the location information may be transmitted from the second user terminal 108 to the first user terminal 102 separately to the video data, such that the location information is sent on a different communication channel to the video data.
At step S304, the communication client executed on first user terminal 102 receives, via the network interface 224 of the first user terminal 102, the location information transmitted from the second user terminal 108 to the first user terminal 102 over the network 106.
At step S306, the communication client executed on the first user terminal 102 supplies the location information to the mapping module 228 on the first user terminal 102. The communication client executed on the first user terminal 102 and the mapping module 228 may each comprise an application programming interface (API) so that data may be exchanged between them to enable the applications to communicate with each other.
The mapping module 228 transmits the location information, with a request for map data via the network interface 224 to the mapping server 112. The mapping server 112 stores a large set of pre-generated map tile images covering the entire globe, each map tile has a z coordinate describing its zoom level and x and y co-ordinates describing its position. For each zoom level there is a predetermined number of map tile images to cover the entire globe, whereby the greater the zoom level, the greater the number of predetermined number of map tile images are required to cover the entire globe. A single map tile at a lower zoom level illustrates a larger geographic area than a single map tile at a higher zoom level.
The mapping server 112 determines, based on the received location information, a subset of map tile images of the large set of pre-generated map tile images stored by the mapping server 112. The mapping server 112 transmits the subset of map tile images to the mapping module 228 executed on the first user terminal 102.
The mapping module 228 supplies the subset of map tile images to the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102. At step S306, the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102 displays a map formed of the subset of map tile images on the display 204. The generated map provides a diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea in the vicinity of the second user terminal 108 at an appropriate scale. For example, the generated map may show roads, parks, railway lines, rivers, hospitals, landmarks etc.
The mapping module 228 executed on the first user terminal 102 knows the location (i.e. a longitude and latitude) of the second user terminal 108 based on receiving this information from the communication client application. The subset of map tile images cover a range of longitudes and a range of latitudes of the vicinity of the second user terminal 108. Thus the mapping module 228 is able to determine the location of the second user terminal 108 with reference to the map formed of the subset of map tile images displayed on the display 204 (the mapping module 228 is able to determine a position of where to display a visual indication of the location of the second user terminal 108 with reference to the displayed map on the display 204).
The mapping module 228 executed on the first user terminal 102 communicates the position information relating to where to display a visual indication (with reference to the displayed map) of the location of the second user terminal 108 on the display 204, to the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102.
At step S308, the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102 uses this position information received from the mapping module 228 to control the video data received at step S302 to be displayed in a position of the display 204 to provide a visual indication of the location of the second user terminal 108 with reference to the displayed map. That is, by its very nature the map displayed by the mapping module 228 displays a plurality of geographical locations, and the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102 controls the video data received from the second user terminal 108 to be displayed on the display 204 to provide a visual indication of the location of the second user terminal 108 at one of the plurality of locations.
Thus both geographical location information and video data are simultaneously displayed on a user terminal to visually indicate the location of the second user terminal 108 from which the video data is received.
It will be appreciated from the above, that embodiments of the disclosure lets all participants in a video call keep eye-contact and continue visual communication whilst at the same time clearly communicating each other's geographic location and movements. In embodiments of the disclosure switching between user interfaces of different applications to view both geographical location information and video data is avoided.
The simultaneous display of both geographical location information and video data may be implemented in a number of ways.
Reference is now made to
On the display 204 of the first user terminal 102 a map 402 is displayed by the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102, the map formed of the subset of map tile images received from the mapping module 228. The communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102 also displays a “video avatar” (captured video data of the second user 110) on the displayed map 402.
In
Whilst
As shown in
The video data displayed by the communication client application on the display 204 may be a selectable input. That is, the first user 104 may select the displayed video data using an appropriate input device of the first user terminal 102.
In response to the first user 104 selecting the displayed video data the communication client application may display a map formed of map tile images with a higher zoom level than the zoom level of the map tile images displayed prior to the user selection by the first user 104 i.e. the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102 zooms in on the location of the second user terminal 108. That is, in response to the communication client application detecting selection of the displayed video data, the communication client application may transmit a request to the mapping module 228 for map data based on the latest location information received at the first user terminal 102 at a higher zoom level. The mapping module 228 retrieves this map data from the map server 112 and supplies it to the communication client application for display on the display 204.
This enables the first user 104 to be provided with a more detailed view of the location of the second user terminal 108 to assist in determining the location of the second user terminal 108.
In response to the first user 104 selecting the video data displayed the communication client application may increase the size of the displayed video data. That is, in response to the communication client application detecting selection of the displayed video data, the communication client application may utilise a larger physical portion of the display 204 to display the received video data i.e. the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102 zooms in on the displayed video data. This enables the first user 104 to be provided with a larger view of the received video data.
In response to communication client application detecting selection of the displayed video data, the communication client application may provide the user one or more selectable options pertaining to the functionality provided by the communication client application. The one or more selectable options may be selected by the first user 104 using an appropriate input device on the first user terminal 102 and allow interaction with the second user 110 at the second user terminal 108.
The one or more selectable options may include an option to view profile information of the second user 110, to send the second user 110 a Short Message Service (SMS) message, to send the second user 110 an IM message, to send the second user 110 a data file, to view IM conversation history between the first user 104 and the second user 110 etc. It will be appreciated that these examples are used herein to illustrate the concept and further selectable options may be provided the communication client application that are not described herein.
During the video call, as updates to the location of the second user terminal 108 are sent to the first user terminal, the communication client application executed on the first user terminal 102 controls the video data received from the second user terminal 108 to be displayed on said display to provide a visual indication of the location of the second user terminal 108 with reference to the displayed map. That is, a video avatar of the second user will move on the map as the second user terminal moves geographical position.
In order for the first user terminal 102 to operate in accordance with the process of
Whilst it has been described above that location information is sent in one direction (from the second user terminal 108 to the first user terminal 104), during the video call the first user 104 may select to share their geographical location with the second user 110. That is, location information may be transmitted from and received at, at a single user terminal during a video call. It will be appreciated that in order for the first user terminal 102 to share their geographical location the location determination module 228 is required in order to determine the location of the user terminal 102.
Whilst only two user terminals have been shown in
Whilst the map data stored by the mapping server 112 has been described above as comprising pre-generated map tile images, the map data stored by the mapping server 112 may take other forms well known to persons skilled in the art.
The steps shown separately in
Generally, any of the functions described herein can be implemented using software, firmware, hardware (e.g., fixed logic circuitry), or a combination of these implementations. The terms “module,” “functionality,” “component”, “application” and “logic” as used herein generally represent software, firmware, hardware, or a combination thereof. In the case of a software implementation, the module, functionality, or logic represents program code that performs specified tasks when executed on a processor (e.g. CPU or CPUs). The program code can be stored in one or more computer readable memory devices. The features of the techniques described below are platform-independent, meaning that the techniques may be implemented on a variety of commercial computing platforms having a variety of processors.
For example, the user terminals may also include an entity (e.g. software) that causes hardware of the user terminals to perform operations, e.g., processors functional blocks, and so on. For example, the user terminals may include a computer-readable medium that may be configured to maintain instructions that cause the user terminals, and more particularly the operating system and associated hardware of the user terminals to perform operations. Thus, the instructions function to configure the operating system and associated hardware to perform the operations and in this way result in transformation of the operating system and associated hardware to perform functions. The instructions may be provided by the computer-readable medium to the user terminals through a variety of different configurations.
One such configuration of a computer-readable medium is signal bearing medium and thus is configured to transmit the instructions (e.g. as a carrier wave) to the computing device, such as via a network. The computer-readable medium may also be configured as a computer-readable storage medium and thus is not a signal bearing medium. Examples of a computer-readable storage medium include a random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), an optical disc, flash memory, hard disk memory, and other memory devices that may use magnetic, optical, and other techniques to store instructions and other data.
Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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1319333.9 | Nov 2013 | GB | national |