1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a system for rotating a class of three-dimensional (3D) displays called volumetric displays and, more particularly, to a system that allows a user to rotate the display to view different parts of the scene within the display without having to move or walk around the display.
2. Description of the Related Art
A class of three-dimensional (3D) displays, called volumetric displays, is currently undergoing rapid advancement. The types of displays in this class include holographic displays, swept volume displays and static volume displays. Volumetric displays allow for 3D graphical scenes to be displayed within a true 3D volume. Because the technology of these displays is undergoing rapid development those of skill in the art are concentrating on the engineering of the display itself. As a result, the man-machine interface to these types of displays is receiving scant attention.
While the volumetric displays allow a user to view different parts of a true 3D scene, the act of viewing the different parts typically requires that the user physically move around the display. For example, if the user wants to view the backside of a scene including a building, the user must move to the backside of the display to see the back of the building. This movement is typically performed by the user walking around the display. Requiring the user to physically move around the display for an extended period of time is probably not the best way to work with these types of displays. And some movements may also be impractical, such as moving above the display for a view from above.
Another approach to viewing the different parts of the display is for the user to virtually navigate around the scene using camera navigation techniques. For large complicated scenes, rendering the scene for each increment of camera navigation can be computationally expensive, with the result that slow refresh rates detract from the user's experience. What is needed is a system that will allow a user to physically rotate the display.
It is an aspect of the present invention to provide a system that allows a user of a three-dimensional volumetric display to remain in one position while rotating the display, either directly by hand or through a rotation mechanism that could include a motor drive, so that scene objects are rotated within the display and can be see from different viewpoints.
It is another aspect of the present invention to allow a user to rotate a display enclosure and thereby rotate the contents of the display.
It is also an aspect of the present invention to maintain orientation of widgets in the display with respect to the user while display contents rotate.
It is a further aspect of the present invention to allow a gain to be applied to the virtual rotation of the display with respect to the physical rotation of the enclosure.
It is an additional aspect of the present invention to allow users to intuitively control a dome or ball shaped display by placing their hands on the enclosure of the display and moving the display with their hands in a direction based on the intuitive hand control.
The above aspects can be attained by a system that allows a user to physically rotate a three-dimensional volumetric display enclosure with a corresponding rotation of the display contents. This allows the user to remain in one position while being able to view different parts of the displayed scene from different viewpoints. The display contents can be rotated in direct correspondence with the display enclosure or with a gain that accelerates the rotation of the contents with respect to the physical rotation of the enclosure. Any display widgets in the scene, such as a virtual keyboard, can be maintained stationary with respect to the user while scene contents rotate.
These together with other aspects and advantages that will be subsequently apparent, reside in the details of construction and operation as more fully hereinafter described and claimed, reference being had to the accompanying drawings forming a part hereof, wherein like numerals refer to like parts throughout.
The present invention is directed to a system that allows a user to physically rotate an enclosure for a three-dimensional (3D) volumetric display to thereby rotate the scene displayed within the enclosure so the user can view different parts of the scene without the user being required to physically move around the display (or to navigate a virtual camera type view of the scene. A combination of physical rotation of the display and manipulation of the virtual camera either thru turning the display or thru some other input device is also useful. For example, turning the physical display to rotate the contents of the display while at the same time moving a mouse to magnify the contents.
The rotation or movement of the displayed scene with the rotation or movement of the enclosure can be accomplished in a number of different ways. The display mechanism, such as a holographic projector, can be physically rotated with the enclosure. Such an embodiment where the display apparatus is inside the enclosure requires that the display interface, particularly, the power and display inputs, be coupled through a conventional rotating connection. The power and display inputs can also be supplied electromagnetically similar to the way that smart cards are supplied with power and I/O data. By rotating the entire display mechanism, the contents need not be redrawn each time the display is moved. In an alternate embodiment the displayed scene can be virtually rotated responsive to the rotation of the enclosure. That is, as the enclosure is rotated the scene can be redrawn to correspond to the enclosure rotation. The virtual rotation of the scene within the enclosure does not require that the display apparatus be rotated and a rotational or electromagnetic coupling is not needed. Also, some combination of virtual rotation and physical rotation can be used.
In both of the embodiments discussed above, the enclosure mechanism can be made as depicted in
The rotary encoder 60/70 (see
The rotation of the scene within the enclosure is typically a 1 for 1 rotation. That is, if the enclosure is rotated 10 degrees the displayed scene is rotated 10 degrees. It is also possible to rotate the displayed scene at a rate that is faster or slower than the rotation rate of the enclosure. Negative scene rotation with respect to enclosure rotation is also possible. Preferably, the user can set the rotational gain discussed above.
The operations 90 (see
The virtual scene can also be constantly rotated, with the physical rotation adjusting the rate at which the scene is being rotated. For example, consider a virtual scene consisting of a swirling water current. Physically rotating the enclosure in the same direction of the water current speeds up the water flow. Rotating in the opposite direction, slows the water down.
When widgets are scene objects, or when parts of the scene need to be rotated at different rates, the rotation of each scene object is determined as depicted in
The widgets are discussed above as being adjusted continuously as the contents are rotated. It is also possible to adjust the widgets based on a rotational threshold. For example, a keyboard UI widget need not always be facing the user but can be oriented with respect to the user with some tilt. But when the tilt gets too large, such as above 10 degrees, the widget is rotated back to facing the user. Note that this may not happen all at once in the next display refresh cycle. Instead, the rotation could happen in increments until the final rotation amount is reached. This has the effect of preventing a visually jarring discontinuity by smoothly animating the widget to the final rotation position.
The relative positioning of widgets with respect to scene objects as the enclosure and scene objects rotate can be extended to be used with portions of the display contents that are designated. For example, one or more three-dimensional sections/parts/segments/sub-volumes of a volumetric display can be designated to remain stationary with respect to the user as the scene/enclosure rotate. For example, a scene of a landscape may be partitioned such that the landscape being modified rotates with the enclosure while a segment holding landscape elements, such as trees, bushes, rocks, remains stationary. This would facilitate the user selecting landscape elements and placing them in desired positions. Other effects can be created with different gains set for different segments of the display. Different rotational gains can also be set for different objects.
It is also possible for different rotational effects to be applied to different segments of the enclosure such that one segment rotates at a gain of one while another segment rotates with a gain of two.
It is also possible to have a secondary input stream control different sub-portions of the display while the display enclosure is being rotated. For example, suppose the user uses a mouse input device to click-on and hold a window in place while, with the other hand, they rotate the display. In this case, the window would not rotate with the display. This can be accomplished by assigning each object in the display a rotational gain of one and adjusting the gain of the selected window to negative one.
It is sometimes the case that the user may want to have a content rotation, once initiated, to continue for a specified period of time or, if the rotation is time indexed, until a specified time index is reached.
The present invention has been described with the rotation of the enclosure causing the contents of the display to rotate. It is possible for the rotation of the enclosure to be applied to a specific object (or objects) designated by the user in the scene such that rotation of the enclosure causes the object to rotate about the object center of mass. Additionally, the center of rotation could be varied. For example, normally, the center of rotation is the central axis of the display. However, an object could be selected and then rotating the enclosure rotates the scene about the object's center axis. Note that rotation of the display contents around any arbitrary axis could be controlled by rotating the display enclosure.
The rotational offset of the enclosure could be used to control the rate at which the display contents are rotated. For example, rotating the enclosure 10 degrees to the right makes the display contents rotate at a rate of 10 degrees per second. Rotating the enclosure an additional 10 degrees increases the rotational rate to 20 degrees per second. This is accomplished using the joystick functions that control the rate of movement of virtual objects. Hence, the design variations of joysticks such as “spring-loaded”, isotonic vs isometric and different rate control mappings are applied.
Position relative to the enclosure can be used to control rotation of the display. For example, suppose a virtual head is displayed in the volumetric display. Suppose the user approaches the display from the “back of the head” viewpoint. Touching the enclosure on this side causes the display content to rotate 180 degrees so the face of the head faces the user. This can be accomplished by designating a reference for an object and, when a touch occurs, rotating the contents to align the reference with the touch. Rather than using touch to signal position, voice or thermal sensing or any other position sensors could also be used.
The typical volumetric displays being manufactured today have mechanical components that have inertia that could cause the mechanical components to distort when the enclosure is rotated quickly. Distortion of the mechanical components can cause the display contents to be distorted. These types of distortion can be measured and the display compensated for these types of distortions.
The present invention has been described with respect to actually rotating the enclosure when rotating the scene. The present invention has been described with respect to using a shaft encoder and the enclosure rotating about a centrally positioned shaft. It is possible for the rotational bearing for the enclosure to be on the periphery of the enclosure and the encoder to be mounted to sense the rotation of the periphery of the enclosure. It is possible to provide a ring around the bottom of the display enclosure that can be rotated to rotate the display contents and to thereby not need to rotate the entire enclosure. It is possible, to sense a rotational rate force being applied to the enclosure or a circumferential ring via a rate controller sensor and virtually rotate the displayed scene accordingly. That is, the rotational force is sensed, the enclosure or ring does not actually rotate and the display rotates proportional to the force sensed.
The present invention has been described using rotary type encoders to sense rotational motion of the display. It is possible to use other types of sensors such as yaw, pitch and roll sensors to sense rotational force. It is also possible to mount roller wheels/balls around the periphery of the enclosure, sense the rotation of the roller wheels/balls and rotate the display contents accordingly without rotating the enclosure.
The volumetric display has been described as a dome or ball, however, other shapes, such as cubes, pyramids, etc., can be used for such displays. The volumetric display also need not have a complete enclosure and the display contents can be projected into an open volume or a partially enclosed volume.
It is possible to have a proxy object serve as a representation of the dome. This proxy object can be manipulated (i.e., rotated) and cause the corresponding actions to occur on the volumetric display. Floor sensors can serve to indicate a rotational amount or user position. The size of display may not be desktop scale but could be smaller (e.g., wristwatch or PDA) or much larger (e.g., room scale as in viewing a car) or even much larger (e.g., as in an amusement park ride scale).
Another variation is a “volumetric chameleon”. In this variation a volumetric display is mounted on a mechanical armature or trolly that can sense it's position and orientation in space (i.e., “spatially-aware” display like the Chameleon). For example, imagine using a volumetric display for viewing the internals of a human body. At position A, the volumetric display shows a human liver. The operator then physically moves the volumetric display 16 inches up and 5 inches to the left. Along the way, the internal structures such as the stomach and lungs are displayed until the operator finally stops moving the display when the heart appears. This can be accomplished by sampling the position of the trolly. Using this 3D trolly position, the system finds a corresponding point in a 3D display map. The contents of the display map corresponding to the volume of the display at the corresponding point are transferred to the volumetric display.
The system also includes permanent or removable storage, such as magnetic and optical discs, RAM, ROM, etc. on which the process and data structures of the present invention can be stored and distributed. The processes can also be distributed via, for example, downloading over a network such as the Internet.
The many features and advantages of the invention are apparent from the detailed specification and, thus, it is intended by the appended claims to cover all such features and advantages of the invention that fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the invention to the exact construction and operation illustrated and described, and accordingly all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the invention.
This application is a Continuation of application Ser. No. 10/188,765 filed Jun. 28, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,138,997, which is related to and claims priority to U.S. provisional application entitled User Interfaces For Volumetric Displays having Ser. No. 60/350,952, by Kurtenbach et al, filed Jan. 25, 2002, this application is also related to U.S. application entitled Three Dimensional Volumetric Display Input And Output Configurations having Ser. No. 10/183,970, by Kurtenbach et al, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,753,847, to U.S. application entitled Volume Management System For Volumetric Displays having Ser. No. 10/183,966, by Kurtenbach et al, filed herewith, to U.S. application entitled Widgets Displayed And Operable On A Surface Of A Volumetric Display Enclosure, having Ser. No. 10/183,945, by Fitzmaurice et al, filed concurrently herewith, to U.S. application entitled Graphical User Interface Widgets Viewable And Readable From Multiple Viewpoints In A Volumetric Display, having Ser. No. 10/183,968, by Fitzmaurice et al, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,205,991, to U.S. application entitled Techniques For Pointing To Locations Within A Volumetric Display, having Ser. No. 10/183,944, by Balakrishnan et al, filed concurrently herewith and all of which are incorporated by reference herein.
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