Patent Application
20250173966
This disclosure relates generally to image processing, and more specifically to for neural network-based reconstruction of three-dimensional representation of human body from an image.
Due to increase in the availability of augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) devices such as AR/VR headsets and AR/VR glasses, there is increase in interest for 3D virtual world creation. This has resulted in a substantial demand for easily accessible 3D reconstruction of human body shapes, for example, for building 3D avatars of real people. Such reconstructed human shapes may be used in applications such as artificial reality or virtual reality gaming, medical applications, content generation, and so on. A challenge in creating such 3D representations of human shapes is the accuracy of the reconstruction methods. Known techniques either require sophisticated equipment, for example, sensors to capture the input data needed for 3D reconstruction or produce low quality or generate inaccurate 3D representations of human body shapes that lack details.
A system reconstructs accurate three-dimensional (3D) representation of a human body shape from a single-view RGB-D image of the human body shape that include color information and depth information. A machine learning based model predicts a signed distance function used for 3D reconstruction of the human body shape. The system learns accurate geometric details of a human body from pixel-aligned features and voxel-aligned features.
According to an embodiment, the machine learning based model receives an input image showing a human body shape. The input image includes color information and depth information of pixels. The model generates a set of high-resolution features and a set of low-resolution features from the color information of the input image. The model generates a three-dimensional voxel grid from the depth information of the input image. The model generates a set of voxel-aligned features from the three-dimensional voxel grid and the set of low-resolution features extracted from the input image. The model generates a signed depth field of the human body shape shown from the set of high-resolution features and the set of voxel-aligned features. The signed depth field represents a value based on a distance of a point from the surface of the human body shape.
According to an embodiment, the system trains the model by performing semantic aware sampling. The system determines body parts associated with different portions of the input image. A set of three-dimensional points are determined based on the input image such that the density of the three-dimensional points associated with a portion of the input image is based on a type of body part associated with the portion of the input image. The system uses the set of three-dimensional points for training the model.
The figures depict various embodiments for purposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments of the structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principles described herein.
A system reconstructs accurate three-dimensional (3D) representation of a human body from a single-view RGB-D image. The RGB-D image includes color information and depth information. The system learns accurate geometric details of a human body from both pixel-aligned features and voxel-aligned features. The voxel-aligned features leverage depth information and enables spatial relationships to be learned in three-dimensions, thereby mitigating depth ambiguities. The system further integrates surface normal and human body semantic information to increase the accuracy of the reconstructed human body shapes. The techniques disclosed allow the system to generate high-fidelity 3D human shapes that present high level of details that are significantly close to 3D scan captures.
Embodiments of the invention may include or be implemented in conjunction with an artificial reality system. Artificial reality is a form of reality that has been adjusted in some manner before presentation to a user, which may include, e.g., a virtual reality (VR), an augmented reality (AR), a mixed reality (MR), a hybrid reality, or some combination and/or derivatives thereof. Artificial reality content may include completely generated content or generated content combined with captured (e.g., real-world) content. The artificial reality content may include video, audio, haptic feedback, or some combination thereof, any of which may be presented in a single channel or in multiple channels (such as stereo video that produces a three-dimensional effect to the viewer). Additionally, in some embodiments, artificial reality may also be associated with applications, products, accessories, services, or some combination thereof, that are used to create content in an artificial reality and/or are otherwise used in an artificial reality. The artificial reality system that provides the artificial reality content may be implemented on various platforms, including a wearable device (e.g., headset) connected to a host computer system, a standalone wearable device (e.g., headset), a mobile device or computing system, or any other hardware platform capable of providing artificial reality content to one or more viewers.
The frame 110 holds the other components of the headset 100. The frame 110 includes a front part that holds the one or more display elements 120 and end pieces (e.g., temples) to attach to a head of the user. The front part of the frame 110 bridges the top of a nose of the user. The length of the end pieces may be adjustable (e.g., adjustable temple length) to fit different users. The end pieces may also include a portion that curls behind the ear of the user (e.g., temple tip, ear piece).
The one or more display elements 120 provide light to a user wearing the headset 100. As illustrated the headset includes a display element 120 for each eye of a user. In some embodiments, a display element 120 generates image light that is provided to an eyebox of the headset 100. The eyebox is a location in space that an eye of user occupies while wearing the headset 100. For example, a display element 120 may be a waveguide display. A waveguide display includes a light source (e.g., a two-dimensional source, one or more line sources, one or more point sources, etc.) and one or more waveguides. Light from the light source is in-coupled into the one or more waveguides which outputs the light in a manner such that there is pupil replication in an eyebox of the headset 100. In-coupling and/or outcoupling of light from the one or more waveguides may be done using one or more diffraction gratings. In some embodiments, the waveguide display includes a scanning element (e.g., waveguide, mirror, etc.) that scans light from the light source as it is in-coupled into the one or more waveguides. Note that in some embodiments, one or both of the display elements 120 are opaque and do not transmit light from a local area around the headset 100. The local area is the area surrounding the headset 100. For example, the local area may be a room that a user wearing the headset 100 is inside, or the user wearing the headset 100 may be outside and the local area is an outside area. In this context, the headset 100 generates VR content. Alternatively, in some embodiments, one or both of the display elements 120 are at least partially transparent, such that light from the local area may be combined with light from the one or more display elements to produce AR and/or MR content.
In some embodiments, a display element 120 does not generate image light, and instead is a lens that transmits light from the local area to the eyebox. For example, one or both of the display elements 120 may be a lens without correction (non-prescription) or a prescription lens (e.g., single vision, bifocal and trifocal, or progressive) to help correct for defects in a user's eyesight. In some embodiments, the display element 120 may be polarized and/or tinted to protect the user's eyes from the sun.
In some embodiments, the display element 120 may include an additional optics block (not shown). The optics block may include one or more optical elements (e.g., lens, Fresnel lens, etc.) that direct light from the display element 120 to the eyebox. The optics block may, e.g., correct for aberrations in some or all of the image content, magnify some or all of the image, or some combination thereof.
The DCA determines depth information for a portion of a local area surrounding the headset 100. The DCA includes one or more imaging devices 130 and a DCA controller (not shown in
The DCA controller computes depth information for the portion of the local area using the captured images and one or more depth determination techniques. The depth determination technique may be, e.g., direct time-of-flight (ToF) depth sensing, indirect ToF depth sensing, structured light, passive stereo analysis, active stereo analysis (uses texture added to the scene by light from the illuminator 140), some other technique to determine depth of a scene, or some combination thereof.
The audio system provides audio content. The audio system includes a transducer array, a sensor array, and an audio controller 150. However, in other embodiments, the audio system may include different and/or additional components. Similarly, in some cases, functionality described with reference to the components of the audio system can be distributed among the components in a different manner than is described here. For example, some or all of the functions of the controller may be performed by a remote server.
The transducer array presents sound to user. The transducer array includes a plurality of transducers. A transducer may be a speaker 160 or a tissue transducer 170 (e.g., a bone conduction transducer or a cartilage conduction transducer). Although the speakers 160 are shown exterior to the frame 110, the speakers 160 may be enclosed in the frame 110. In some embodiments, instead of individual speakers for each ear, the headset 100 includes a speaker array comprising multiple speakers integrated into the frame 110 to improve directionality of presented audio content. The tissue transducer 170 couples to the head of the user and directly vibrates tissue (e.g., bone or cartilage) of the user to generate sound. The number and/or locations of transducers may be different from what is shown in
The sensor array detects sounds within the local area of the headset 100. The sensor array includes a plurality of acoustic sensors 180. An acoustic sensor 180 captures sounds emitted from one or more sound sources in the local area (e.g., a room). Each acoustic sensor is configured to detect sound and convert the detected sound into an electronic format (analog or digital). The acoustic sensors 180 may be acoustic wave sensors, microphones, sound transducers, or similar sensors that are suitable for detecting sounds.
The audio controller 150 processes information from the sensor array that describes sounds detected by the sensor array. The audio controller 150 may comprise a processor and a computer-readable storage medium. The audio controller 150 may be configured to generate direction of arrival (DOA) estimates, generate acoustic transfer functions (e.g., array transfer functions and/or head-related transfer functions), track the location of sound sources, form beams in the direction of sound sources, classify sound sources, generate sound filters for the speakers 160, or some combination thereof.
The position sensor 190 generates one or more measurement signals in response to motion of the headset 100. The position sensor 190 may be located on a portion of the frame 110 of the headset 100. The position sensor 190 may include an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Examples of position sensor 190 include: one or more accelerometers, one or more gyroscopes, one or more magnetometers, another suitable type of sensor that detects motion, a type of sensor used for error correction of the IMU, or some combination thereof. The position sensor 190 may be located external to the IMU, internal to the IMU, or some combination thereof.
In some embodiments, the headset 100 may provide for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) for a position of the headset 100 and updating of a model of the local area. For example, the headset 100 may include a passive camera assembly (PCA) that generates color image data. The PCA may include one or more RGB cameras that capture images of some or all of the local area. In some embodiments, some or all of the imaging devices 130 of the DCA may also function as the PCA. The images captured by the PCA and the depth information determined by the DCA may be used to determine parameters of the local area, generate a model of the local area, update a model of the local area, or some combination thereof. Furthermore, the position sensor 190 tracks the position (e.g., location and pose) of the headset 100 within the room. Additional details regarding the components of the headset 100 are discussed below in connection with
The devices shown in
The machine learning based model 200 may also be referred to herein as a model. The implicit function ƒ may represent a continuous function that is obtained by training the model 200 on discretely represented samples of the same function. Although specific components of the machine learning based model are illustrated in the architecture illustrated in
The machine learning based model 200 shown in
Given a set X of 3D surface points located on a 3D grid with arbitrary resolution, the system extracts the reconstructed body surface S.
The model 200 receives RGB-D image of a human body that includes color information 205 and depth information 210. An RGB-D image includes color information represented by R (red, G (green), B (blue) components for each pixel as well as depth information represented by a D (depth) component. Accordingly, an RGB-D image provides a per-pixel depth information aligned with corresponding image pixels.
The model uses depth information 210 to generate normals 215 to the surfaces of the human body displayed in the image. The voxelization component 220 uses the depth information 210 to generate a 3D voxel grid corresponding to the human body displayed in the image. A voxel represents a value on a grid in three-dimensional space and may be considered as a 3D pixel. Learning spatial relationships in 3D space helps solve the problems of depth ambiguity caused by the single-view input.
A high-resolution stacked hourglass component 225 of the model 200 receives the color information 205 and the normals 215 as input. The high-resolution stacked hourglass component 225 generates a set of high-resolution features, also referred to as fine level appearance features, appearance features, or pixel aligned features. The model may perform bilinear interpolation 240 on the appearance features to increase the number of data points on a two-dimensional plane corresponding to the input image. For example, the high-resolution stacked hourglass component 225 outputs an embedding of resolution 256×256 while the resolution of the features obtained from low-resolution stacked hourglass component 230 is 128×128. An hourglass component has symmetric topology and roughly equal distribution layers that perform processing from high resolutions to low resolutions and layers that perform processing from low resolutions to high resolutions. A stacked hourglass component stacks multiple such hourglass components.
A low-resolution stacked hourglass component 230 of the model 200 receives the color information 205 and the normals 215 as input. The low-resolution stacked hourglass component 230 generates a set of low-resolution features or coarse level appearance features. The coarse level appearance features may also be referred to as pixel-aligned low-resolution features.
The model 200 combines the 3D voxel grid with the coarse level appearance features by concatenating each voxel with a corresponding pixel-aligned low-resolution image-space features. The sparse convolutional neural network component 235 of the model 200 receives the 3D voxel grid along with the coarse level appearance features as input and generates a set of geometry features of the human body. A trilinear interpolation 240 is performed on the geometry features to increase the number of data points on a three-dimensional grid corresponding to the input image.
A multi-layered perceptron component 255 of the model 200 receives the appearance features, positional encodings, and geometry features as input predicts a signed distance field (SDF) 280 representing the 3D human shape shown in the input image. A multi-layered perceptron (MLP) is a feed forward neural network that includes multiple layers an input layer, an output layer and one or more hidden layers. The signed distance field value represents the distance between a point and the surface of the 3D representation of the human body. The value of the SDF at a point outside the 3D representation of the human body is a positive value; the value of the SDF at a point inside the 3D representation of the human body is a negative value; and the value of the SDF at a point on the 3D representation of the human body is zero.
The training module 202 performs training of the machine learning model by repeatedly executing the model using training data, computing one or more loss values representing a difference between the predicted output and labeled data, and adjusting parameters of various components of the model 200 to minimize the loss values 19. The training module performs semantic aware sampling of data points for determining loss functions for training the model.
The system may learn the function ƒ using a fixed set of 3D points obtained using uniform sampling. If the system uses sampling that is homogeneous around the shape, smaller parts of the body such as fingers, nose and lips have significantly less 3D sampled points and thus, fail to reconstruct these parts adequately. Therefore, the system performs semantic aware sampling. Accordingly, the system associates specific subsets of neighboring 3D points determines with specific body parts. The system may determine a semantic mask from the RGB image by performing body-part segmentation for the whole body.
The system projects the 3D points Xb sampled around the surface S on the 2D image displaced with a Gaussian noise. The system identifies body parts that need higher rate of sampling of points, for example, fingers, face, and so on. If a point or a subset of points corresponds to a body part that needs higher rate of sampling, the system samples additional points. The following equation represents the points determined using semantic aware sampling.
In this equation Xt is the final number of sampled points, Xhh represents the semantic points corresponding to specific body parts identified for denser sampling, for example, hands and face, Xb are the points sampled in the body, NXb is the number of points in Xb, NXhh is the number of points in Xhh and Add is defined as an NK-steps recursion addition: Xhh=Xhh+Add(Xhh+N(0, σHR)) with σHR<σLR in order to sample closer to the surface where there are fine details.
The model 200 receives 410 an input image including a human body. The input image includes color information 205 and depth information 210. The high-resolution stacked hourglass component 225 generates 420 a set of high-resolution features from the color information of the input image. The low-resolution stacked hourglass component 230 generates 430 a set of low-resolution features from the color information of the input image. The voxelization component 220 uses the depth information 210 to generate 440 a 3D voxel grid corresponding to the human body displayed in the image from the depth information 210. The sparse convolutional neural network component 235 generates 450 a set of voxel-aligned features from the voxel grid and the set of low-resolution features extracted from the input image. The multi-layered perceptron component 255 generates 460 a signed depth field of the human body shown in the input image based on the pixel-aligned features and the voxel-aligned features.
The model 200 receives 510 an input image and a corresponding ground truth representation 270 of the human body shown in the input image. The depth information 210 of the input image is used to generate 520 a point cloud representation 275 of the human body shown in the input image. The training module 202 executes 530 the model 200 using the process shown in
The loss value Lsdf represents the difference between the predicted SDF and an SDF representing the ground truth data available in the training data. The ground truth data may be obtained using higher quality depth sensors, for example, lidars. The loss value Ldepth represents the difference between value of the predicted SDF for points on the surface of the 3D representation of the human body and the corresponding SDF value for the points on the point cloud representation 275 determined from the depth information 210. The semantic aware sampling strategy described herein is used for sampling the points of the point cloud for training the model 200.
According to an embodiment, the loss functions are Huber loss functions but may be other loss functions such as mean square error function or mean absolute error function. The Huber loss function determines the loss value using the mean square error function if the loss value is below a threshold. If the loss value is greater than the threshold, the Huber loss function determines the loss value using the mean absolute error function. Using the mean absolute error function for large loss values mitigates the weight on outliers.
The model 200 as disclosed herein performs better in comparison to models that do not use the techniques disclosed herein. The reconstruction accuracy of the systems was compared using three quantitative metrics: (1) the average point-to-surface Euclidean distance (P2S), (2) the normal reprojection error (NORMAL), and (3) the Chamfer distance (CD), in cm.
The following table compares the results of various techniques. The system S1 (2D LR only) uses only color information 205 and normals 215 with low-resolution hourglass component 225. The system S2 (2D HR only) uses only color information 205 and normals 215 with high-resolution hourglass component 225. For both S1 and S2, the depth information 210 is not considered and the sparse convolutional neural network component 235 is not implemented. The system S3 (3D only) uses depth information 210 only without using low-resolution hourglass component 225 and high-resolution hourglass component 225 and without using color information 205 and normals 215. The system S4 (w/o Ldepth) demonstrate the effectiveness of the depth-supervision, by training the model just with the Lsdf loss. The system S5 (w rand feature) links random features to the voxel as input to the sparse convolutional neural network component 235 to illustrate whether having features retrieved from the input depth map improves the performance. The system S5 (w rand feature). The system S6 is model 200 with all the features disclosed herein.
The performance shown in the table I illustrates that the system S6 based on model 200 that includes all the techniques disclosed herein performs better than almost all other system based on the various metrics CD, NORMAL, and P2S. The performance measurements illustrate the impact of the various features of the performance of the system. As shown by the performance measurements the model 200 improves the performance compared to systems that do not use the techniques disclosed.
The headset 705 includes the display assembly 730, an optics block 735, one or more position sensors 740, and the DCA 745. Some embodiments of headset 705 have different components than those described in conjunction with
The display assembly 730 displays content to the user in accordance with data received from the console 715. The display assembly 730 displays the content using one or more display elements (e.g., the display elements 120). A display element may be, e.g., an electronic display. In various embodiments, the display assembly 730 comprises a single display element or multiple display elements (e.g., a display for each eye of a user). Examples of an electronic display include: a liquid crystal display (LCD), an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display, an active-matrix organic light-emitting diode display (AMOLED), a waveguide display, some other display, or some combination thereof. Note in some embodiments, the display element 120 may also include some or all of the functionality of the optics block 735.
The optics block 735 may magnify image light received from the electronic display, corrects optical errors associated with the image light, and presents the corrected image light to one or both eyeboxes of the headset 705. In various embodiments, the optics block 735 includes one or more optical elements. Example optical elements included in the optics block 735 include: an aperture, a Fresnel lens, a convex lens, a concave lens, a filter, a reflecting surface, or any other suitable optical element that affects image light. Moreover, the optics block 735 may include combinations of different optical elements. In some embodiments, one or more of the optical elements in the optics block 735 may have one or more coatings, such as partially reflective or anti-reflective coatings.
Magnification and focusing of the image light by the optics block 735 allows the electronic display to be physically smaller, weigh less, and consume less power than larger displays. Additionally, magnification may increase the field of view of the content presented by the electronic display. For example, the field of view of the displayed content is such that the displayed content is presented using almost all (e.g., approximately 110 degrees diagonal), and in some cases, all of the user's field of view. Additionally, in some embodiments, the amount of magnification may be adjusted by adding or removing optical elements.
In some embodiments, the optics block 735 may be designed to correct one or more types of optical error. Examples of optical error include barrel or pincushion distortion, longitudinal chromatic aberrations, or transverse chromatic aberrations. Other types of optical errors may further include spherical aberrations, chromatic aberrations, or errors due to the lens field curvature, astigmatisms, or any other type of optical error. In some embodiments, content provided to the electronic display for display is pre-distorted, and the optics block 735 corrects the distortion when it receives image light from the electronic display generated based on the content.
The position sensor 740 is an electronic device that generates data indicating a position of the headset 705. The position sensor 740 generates one or more measurement signals in response to motion of the headset 705. The position sensor 190 is an embodiment of the position sensor 740. Examples of a position sensor 740 include: one or more IMUs, one or more accelerometers, one or more gyroscopes, one or more magnetometers, another suitable type of sensor that detects motion, or some combination thereof. The position sensor 740 may include multiple accelerometers to measure translational motion (forward/back, up/down, left/right) and multiple gyroscopes to measure rotational motion (e.g., pitch, yaw, roll). In some embodiments, an IMU rapidly samples the measurement signals and calculates the estimated position of the headset 705 from the sampled data. For example, the IMU integrates the measurement signals received from the accelerometers over time to estimate a velocity vector and integrates the velocity vector over time to determine an estimated position of a reference point on the headset 705. The reference point is a point that may be used to describe the position of the headset 705. While the reference point may generally be defined as a point in space, however, in practice the reference point is defined as a point within the headset 705.
The DCA 745 generates depth information for a portion of the local area. The DCA includes one or more imaging devices and a DCA controller. The DCA 745 may also include an illuminator. Operation and structure of the DCA 745 is described above with regard to
The audio system 750 provides audio content to a user of the headset 705. The audio system 750 may comprise one or acoustic sensors, one or more transducers, and an audio controller. The audio system 750 may provide spatialized audio content to the user. In some embodiments, the audio system 750 may request acoustic parameters from the mapping server 725 over the network 720. The acoustic parameters describe one or more acoustic properties (e.g., room impulse response, a reverberation time, a reverberation level, etc.) of the local area. The audio system 750 may provide information describing at least a portion of the local area from e.g., the DCA 745 and/or location information for the headset 705 from the position sensor 740. The audio system 750 may generate one or more sound filters using one or more of the acoustic parameters received from the mapping server 725, and use the sound filters to provide audio content to the user.
The I/O interface 710 is a device that allows a user to send action requests and receive responses from the console 715. An action request is a request to perform a particular action. For example, an action request may be an instruction to start or end capture of image or video data, or an instruction to perform a particular action within an application. The I/O interface 710 may include one or more input devices. Example input devices include: a keyboard, a mouse, a game controller, or any other suitable device for receiving action requests and communicating the action requests to the console 715. An action request received by the I/O interface 710 is communicated to the console 715, which performs an action corresponding to the action request. In some embodiments, the I/O interface 710 includes an IMU that captures calibration data indicating an estimated position of the I/O interface 710 relative to an initial position of the I/O interface 710. In some embodiments, the I/O interface 710 may provide haptic feedback to the user in accordance with instructions received from the console 715. For example, haptic feedback is provided when an action request is received, or the console 715 communicates instructions to the I/O interface 710 causing the I/O interface 710 to generate haptic feedback when the console 715 performs an action.
The console 715 provides content to the headset 705 for processing in accordance with information received from one or more of: the DCA 745, the headset 705, and the I/O interface 710. In the example shown in
The application store 755 stores one or more applications for execution by the console 715. An application is a group of instructions, that when executed by a processor, generates content for presentation to the user. Content generated by an application may be in response to inputs received from the user via movement of the headset 705 or the I/O interface 710. Examples of applications include: gaming applications, conferencing applications, video playback applications, or other suitable applications.
The tracking module 760 tracks movements of the headset 705 or of the I/O interface 710 using information from the DCA 745, the one or more position sensors 740, or some combination thereof. For example, the tracking module 760 determines a position of a reference point of the headset 705 in a mapping of a local area based on information from the headset 705. The tracking module 760 may also determine positions of an object or virtual object. Additionally, in some embodiments, the tracking module 760 may use portions of data indicating a position of the headset 705 from the position sensor 740 as well as representations of the local area from the DCA 745 to predict a future location of the headset 705. The tracking module 760 provides the estimated or predicted future position of the headset 705 or the I/O interface 710 to the engine 765.
The engine 765 executes applications and receives position information, acceleration information, velocity information, predicted future positions, or some combination thereof, of the headset 705 from the tracking module 760. Based on the received information, the engine 765 determines content to provide to the headset 705 for presentation to the user. For example, if the received information indicates that the user has looked to the left, the engine 765 generates content for the headset 705 that mirrors the user's movement in a virtual local area or in a local area augmenting the local area with additional content. Additionally, the engine 765 performs an action within an application executing on the console 715 in response to an action request received from the I/O interface 710 and provides feedback to the user that the action was performed. The provided feedback may be visual or audible feedback via the headset 705 or haptic feedback via the I/O interface 710.
The network 720 couples the headset 705 and/or the console 715 to the mapping server 725. The network 720 may include any combination of local area and/or wide area networks using both wireless and/or wired communication systems. For example, the network 720 may include the Internet, as well as mobile telephone networks. In one embodiment, the network 720 uses standard communications technologies and/or protocols. Hence, the network 720 may include links using technologies such as Ethernet, 802.11, worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), 2G/3G/4G mobile communications protocols, digital subscriber line (DSL), asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), InfiniBand, PCI Express Advanced Switching, etc. Similarly, the networking protocols used on the network 720 can include multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), the transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP), the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), the hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), the simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), the file transfer protocol (FTP), etc. The data exchanged over the network 720 can be represented using technologies and/or formats including image data in binary form (e.g. Portable Network Graphics (PNG)), hypertext markup language (HTML), extensible markup language (XML), etc. In addition, all or some of links can be encrypted using conventional encryption technologies such as secure sockets layer (SSL), transport layer security (TLS), virtual private networks (VPNs), Internet Protocol security (IPsec), etc.
The mapping server 725 may include a database that stores a virtual model describing a plurality of spaces, wherein one location in the virtual model corresponds to a current configuration of a local area of the headset 705. The mapping server 725 receives, from the headset 705 via the network 720, information describing at least a portion of the local area and/or location information for the local area. The user may adjust privacy settings to allow or prevent the headset 705 from transmitting information to the mapping server 725. The mapping server 725 determines, based on the received information and/or location information, a location in the virtual model that is associated with the local area of the headset 705. The mapping server 725 determines (e.g., retrieves) one or more acoustic parameters associated with the local area, based in part on the determined location in the virtual model and any acoustic parameters associated with the determined location. The mapping server 725 may transmit the location of the local area and any values of acoustic parameters associated with the local area to the headset 705.
One or more components of system 700 may contain a privacy module that stores one or more privacy settings for user data elements. The user data elements describe the user or the headset 705. For example, the user data elements may describe a physical characteristic of the user, an action performed by the user, a location of the user of the headset 705, a location of the headset 705, an HRTF for the user, etc. Privacy settings (or “access settings”) for a user data element may be stored in any suitable manner, such as, for example, in association with the user data element, in an index on an authorization server, in another suitable manner, or any suitable combination thereof.
The foregoing description of the embodiments has been presented for illustration; it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the patent rights to the precise forms disclosed. Persons skilled in the relevant art can appreciate that many modifications and variations are possible considering the above disclosure.
Some portions of this description describe the embodiments in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on information. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are commonly used by those skilled in the data processing arts to convey the substance of their work effectively to others skilled in the art. These operations, while described functionally, computationally, or logically, are understood to be implemented by computer programs or equivalent electrical circuits, microcode, or the like. Furthermore, it has also proven convenient at times, to refer to these arrangements of operations as modules, without loss of generality. The described operations and their associated modules may be embodied in software, firmware, hardware, or any combinations thereof.
Any of the steps, operations, or processes described herein may be performed or implemented with one or more hardware or software modules, alone or in combination with other devices. In one embodiment, a software module is implemented with a computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code, which can be executed by a computer processor for performing any or all the steps, operations, or processes described.
Embodiments may also relate to an apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, and/or it may comprise a general-purpose computing device selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium, or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, which may be coupled to a computer system bus. Furthermore, any computing systems referred to in the specification may include a single processor or may be architectures employing multiple processor designs for increased computing capability.
Embodiments may also relate to a product that is produced by a computing process described herein. Such a product may comprise information resulting from a computing process, where the information is stored on a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium and may include any embodiment of a computer program product or other data combination described herein.
Finally, the language used in the specification has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the patent rights. It is therefore intended that the scope of the patent rights be limited not by this detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on an application based hereon. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodiments is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of the patent rights, which is set forth in the following claims.
