Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Image superposition by optical means – Operator body-mounted heads-up display
Reexamination Certificate
2002-06-25
2004-02-10
Chow, Dennis-Doon (Department: 2675)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Image superposition by optical means
Operator body-mounted heads-up display
C348S053000, C340S980000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06690338
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to the presentation of images and, more particularly, to the presentation of successive images.
BACKGROUND ART
Still photography, motion pictures and television were influenced by the way artists represented physical reality in paintings, as if through a window. A highly detailed perspective image is provided, typically within a rectangular frame. All provide highly detailed images which induce the viewer to cooperate with the cameraman's “vision” by assuming the artificial perspective of the representation. The viewer is to some extent enabled to deliberately suspend disbelief that the images themselves are not a real object space. The degree to which the viewer is thus enabled is influenced not only by the image resolution but by the field of view. It is usually thought desirable to increase both. For example, very high resolution commercial television standards have been formulated for increasing image quality. Such approaches typically increase the number of horizontal lines scanned to a number significantly greater than present standards. Larger format movie film such as 70 mm has been used to increase detail. Also, panoramic movies, e.g., “Cinerama” increased the field of view to increase realism. Various stereoscopic television approaches have also been conceived or developed to increase realism.
All of these traditional media take a rather objective view of the physical world. The image is framed by a window through which the viewer can gaze in any direction “into” a representation of an object space. Events are presented in both movies and television in a series of different action scenes in a story line which the viewer can observe from a seemingly quasi-omniscient point of view. The viewer is led to take what appears to be a view of the world as it really is. Yet the choice of image and its perspective is picked by the creator of the image and the viewer actually assumes a passive role.
A sensorama simulator was disclosed by fleilig in U.S. Pat. No. 3,050,870. The senses of an individual were stimulated to simulate an actual experience realistically with images, a breeze, odors, binaural sound and even motion. Heilig also disclosed a stereoscopic television in U.S. Pat. No. 2,955,156. This also was passive.
“Virtual reality,” in an electronic image context, goes even further in the direction of increased realism but enables the viewer to take a much more active role in selecting the image and even the perspective. It means allowing a viewer's natural gestures, i.e., head and body movements, by means of a computer, to control the imaged surroundings, as if the viewer were seeing and even moving about in a real environment of seeing, hearing and touching. The object space needs to be modelled in its entirety and the position and gestures of the viewer monitored. As the viewer moves about in the virtual object space, the perspective for viewing the virtual objects must be changed by tranformation of coordinates to correspond to the viewer's position and perspective. This would represent the ultimate in artificial experience if the objects were touchable. The “objects” in such a virtual environment are not real, however, since they are “created” as “virtual objects” in the database or “reality engine.”
Due to the myriad of possible actions of the viewer, a corresponding multiplicity of virtual scenarios needs to be available from the reality engine for viewer choice. The creation of many possible scenarios for viewer selection creates a problem of massive demand for image storage space.
There is also the problem of a disconcerting time lag between the viewer's action and the response of the imaging system. These problems make this emerging technology hard to achieve using presently available hardware.
A contact-analog headup display disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,218 showed symbolic images superimposed at selected points on a pilot's view of the earth as the aircraft overflies the earth. The position and attitude of the aircraft with respect to the earth and the attitude of the helmet with respect to the aircraft are monitored in order to convert a plurality of stored earth position signals into helmet coordinates. Selected points on earth, such as flightplan waypoints, viewable through the visor of the headup display by the pilot, have symbolic flags planted thereon by means of the display, i.e., the waypoint symbols remain “stuck” on the earth, in the eyes of the pilot, regardless of the attitude of the aircraft and regardless of the attitude of the helmet. The pilot of course can distinguish the unreal symbolic images from the real environment, i.e., the earth.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to provide a new method and means of presenting images in succession.
According to the present invention, “actual” images of actual objects in an object space, taken from a moving perspective of a viewer in the object space, are combined with retrieved images imitative of stationary or moving “virtual” objects in the object space for providing the combined images to the viewer as if the retrieved images were also actual.
The idea is to provide images of the virtual objects such that they are indistinguishable from the images of the actual objects. In other words, the idea is to make it hard to tell the difference or make it difficult to distinguish the real environment from the unreal. Since actual objects in the object space are just reimaged, from the point of view of the viewer, i.e., the images of the actual objects are in registration with the actual objects, they may touched, used, navigated around, over and under and even moved about by the viewer without difficulty. Virtual objects may “enter” the imaged object space as if part of the scene and the viewer may interact with these virtual objects according to various alternatives in preprogrammed scenarios.
In further accord with the first aspect of the present invention, an Imaging system is provided for use in an object space equipped with prearranged real objects which have their positions and geometric features prestored in a computer spatial model of the object space; the system includes a head mounted display having at least one camera or, alternatively, two cameras for stereoscopic display of images the real objects for a viewer in the object space, wherein the system also includes means for monitoring the position of the head mounted display in the object space and its attitude on the viewer's head with respect to the object space, and wherein, the system further includes virtual object image strorage means for providing images thereof retrieved from an image storage medium and provided on the display, depending on the viewer's movements within the object space, and wherein the retrieved virtual object images are combined with the real object images so as to present an integrated whole. To reduce the imaging burden on the reality engine, most of the image content of the scenario may represent real objects and be obtained from the camera or cameras mounted on the viewer's head. Since the viewer's position and the helmet's attitude in the object space are monitored, the virtual object images may be provided in registrated relation to the object space. A seamless integration may be achieved by occluding the portion of the real object images taken up by the virtual object image part retrieved from storage.
The position of the viewer in the object space may be tracked in any number of known methods from the highly sophisticated, such as inertial navigation, to the relatively crude, such as an altimeter In conjunction with floor pressure sensors. The attitude of the head of the viewer may be monitored in a sophisticated manner by means of three-axis gyros or relatively crudely by means of 3-axis inclinometers, for example. It will be understood that other equivalent methods are within the skill of the art.
In still further accord with the present invention, in addition to monitoring the attitu
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