Claims
- 1. Apparatus for presenting a user with a virtual image of phenomena located in a predefined multidimensional space, comprising:
- means for generating data indicative of at least one phenomena extant in a multidimensional space, which multidimensional space has predefined extent in a plurality of dimensions;
- means for converting said generated data to a compact data representation of said at least one phenomena;
- means for storing data defining a plurality of characteristics of said phenomena that are to be displayed to a user;
- means for extracting data, that satisfies said plurality of characteristics defined by said stored data, from said compact data representation; and
- means, responsive to said extracted data, for producing an image representative of a three dimensional view of at least a portion of said multidimensional space to display said phenomena, substantially temporally concurrent with the generation of said data used to produce said image.
- 2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said converting means generates data for said compact data representation indicative of a presence and locus of said at least one phenomena in said multidimensional space.
- 3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein said converting means generates data indicative of an extent of said phenomena in said multidimensional space, said compact data representation defining exterior surfaces of said phenomena.
- 4. The apparatus of claim 3 further comprising:
- means for storing data representative of at least one texture map, which texture map is indicative of features of a surface of said phenomena; and
- wherein said image producing means accesses data in said storing means corresponding to a selected one of said texture maps to produce said image.
- 5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein said image producing means retrieves said data indicative of exterior surfaces of said phenomena concurrent with accessing data in said storing means corresponding to said selected texture map;
- means for altering said surface to incorporate features of said texture map.
- 6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein said image generation means converts said compact data representation data indicative of said exterior surfaces to a pixel by pixel image of said exterior surface of said phenomena.
- 7. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein said image generation means retrieves locus information of said phenomena from said compact data representation to define position of exterior surfaces of said phenomena in said multidimensional space.
- 8. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein said image producing means arbitrates among a plurality of phenomena to identify segments of exterior surfaces of ones of said phenomena to be represented in a foreground of a field of view from a user.
- 9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein said image producing means combines said identified segments of exterior surfaces to present an inter-object spatial relationship view to said user.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/955,309, filed Oct. 1, 1992 titled Virtual Reality Imaging System.
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Continuation in Parts (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
955309 |
Oct 1992 |
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