Microsoft Patent Details Whole-Room Projection Game Environment 118
Mackadoodledoo writes "Details of an immersive video games display system that projects images of the title's environment around a player's room have been revealed in a U.S. patent belonging to Microsoft."
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So, prior art?
Though from looking at the patent it looks like they have some substance there and they aren't just patenting the concept, but an implementation.
so.. A holodeck? (Score:5, Insightful)
so.. A holodeck?
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my thoughts exactly.
daddy want. daddy likey.
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It'd probably be the end of mankind.
Who would want to leave when you can stay in your holo-fantasy world with your holo-fantasy GF.
Re:so.. A holodeck? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Knowing real life, the maker of the product would probably prohibit porn.
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Knowing real life, the maker of the product would probably prohibit porn.
You gottta be kidding. That's usually the killer app!
Didn't anybody see "Brainstorm?"
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Well a holodeck does use Holoprojectors.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Holographic_projector [memory-alpha.org]
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But did they play a game on it? You see, it's all these innovative details like apple finding ways to talk but "on a phone or tablet" which makes it novel and patentable. ;klrng.. Oh excuse me, I just sneezed. Now if someone could do that as part of playing a game or perhaps on a phone, they could get a patent and rule the world.
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Not really. A small step towards a holodeck, maybe but not a holodeck. More like a 360 projection. People have built rooms like this for various purposes (usually scientific projects), although not usually using a single device to project the whole room. Aside from technical difficulties with distortion in doing that (which MS claims to be working around), the shadows of anyone standing in the room prevents that from being a really reliable method, although it might work for a game system where the whole-ro
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Easy fix... use multiple projectors and throw in some force fields for good measure.
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Yeah how can they patent this? (Score:2)
Isn't having thought about it supposed to be enough prior art?
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Why Troi?
So she can crash my holodeck?
Re:so.. A holodeck? (Score:5, Funny)
And how would that make you feel?
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I wonder if maybe it's just a natural progression of technology.
We have monitors then projectors so why not a four way projector? And at the time TNG was on we had primitive VR technology.
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not really, just a really, really really cheap and shitty version of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg8Bh5iI2WY [youtube.com] "Ultimate Battlefield 3 Simulator - Build & Test (Full Video)"
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Fine, as long as Professor Moriarty doesn't develop self-awareness.
I came to loathe the holodeck stories on the various ST sequels. Some of them were OK, but mostly the holodeck was used as a lame device for generating bogus dramatic tension. And the thing was always malfunctioning and threatening to destroy the ship or station or whatever. The first or second time that happened, you think they'd unplug it, dismantle it, and tell people to find another way to recreate.
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And the thing was always malfunctioning and threatening to destroy the ship or station or whatever.
And now we finally know why!
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If Microsoft had been the vendor for Star Fleet holodecks, there would have been an obnoxious musical chord playing every time a simulation began.
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I though this too at first, but it's not really so close to a holodeck. The holodeck had holographic proyections (ie: 3D stuff), this talks about 2D proyections on the walls. So this is closer to "big screens on your sides" than a holodeck.
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If it throws a BSOD with the safeties off do you die in real life?
Graphics cave (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Graphics cave (Score:4, Interesting)
CAVEs, or CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment, come with devices called trackers. One tracker is located on a pair of shutter glasses that the user wears. This one tracks the location of your head, which then adjusts the screens for distortion. The other tracker is located in a device called a Wanda, which is much like a Wii-mote but about 100 times more accurate. The trackers use a magnetic field that fills not just the sides of the CAVE screens it self (10x10x10 foot cube), but beyond that.
Microsoft's innovation appears to be that it does the same thing, but with just one projector, that uses the walls around the room for peripheral vision - a highly useful feature (just ask any hardcore FPS gamer who has changed his FOV setting). It's probably not as accurate or as pretty, and it's likely going to be somewhere below the half a million you need to build a legitimate CAVE.
Sincerely,
Former University of Arkansas at Little Rock CAVE lab assistant
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Doesn't Plato own the patent for projecting images on the walls of CAVEs? Although I think Socrates could claim prior art. Also, their technique didn't require head tracking, the users' heads were strapped in so they couldn't move--they were indeed limited to peripheral vision for seeing anything not in front of them.
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RTFA. This doesn't require a special room, and it's 3D.
Unfortunately (Score:1)
I don't think this will work in my living room. It's not really just a big empty white box.
Nothing New (Score:1)
I skimmed the patent and saw nothing new. Sigh :(
I'm a MS in CS student and I know the basics of how to do everything they claim. I just don't have the time or resources to do it all myself (was actually working on a project doing smaller subset of their features - turning off projection where the user is standing. Will I get sued for that now?). I also never even considered patenting it or anything else I produce :/
You can patent anti-improvements now? (Score:2)
So it is a crappy version of CAVE except with a TV display in it to show better quality images?
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But then the big corporations won't get the patents. Small inventions mostly come from individuals or universities. The corporations incorporate them with other existing technology and patent them. We mustn't let the corporations starve!
Whole room? (Score:2)
New excuse (Score:3)
But mom, I can't make my bed until I kill the zombies guarding it! And I can't possibly clean up my room until they stop bleeding on the carpet.
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now that would be fun (Score:2)
projection is 2 merged projections, TV + secondary (Score:2)
Whole room projection has been in scifi forever and a whole bunch of researchers have done it before some with moving floors.
Where this MS patent is different and where it becomes patentable is "main display" and "secondary display" and merging the two.
It envisions your TV as your main display, with some sort of secondary projector to do the rest of the room and the secondary projection will merge with what is on the TV.
Flight simulators have used multiple merged screens for years. But the MS idea of primar
Re:Prior Art? (Score:4, Insightful)
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When you figure out how to build ...
Not a requirement for a patent in the USA.
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I'll give you a hint: part of the patent is the actual implementation of it, not just a description of "wouldn't-that-be-cool".
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IANL, but I believe that is incorrect. A patent application (at least in the US) only requires a "description of how to make and use the invention that must provide sufficient detail for a person skilled in the art (i.e., the relevant area of technology) to make and use the invention." That doesn't mean the patent holder needs to have that skill, nor that the patent holder needs to have built it or contracted someone to build it.
the furniture (Score:4, Funny)
The furniture better not have rounded corners!
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Interestingly, Rodenberry's contract w/ Paramount actually specified that if any device described on the show were to actually be invented there would be an allowance to use the trademarked name and no lawsuit.
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They would still lose out to whoever they stole the idea from. This is ST we are talking about.
Meh. Danger Room as prior art (Score:1)
What was that...1979? Chris Claremont/John Byrne? Colossus throwing Wolverine like a ball? Screw you, Microsoft. Y'ain't got nothing on this one.
A rather neat idea (Score:4, Informative)
This is a rather neat idea. It is intended to present the effect of a CAVE system, but without a dedicated room. The new ideas here involve using something like a Kinect to profile the room in terms of both geometry and color, then adjust the projected images to compensate. The room wall display comes from a projector atop the main monitor, a projector with optics set up to display a 360 degree image. (Aim a projector at a shiny sphere, and you get half a sphere of projection. Two such rigs facing each other will cover a whole sphere, except for the area behind the projectors. Or you can use fisheye lenses on projectors.)
All this stuff has to be aligned. When you have a wide-angle Kinect-like device, control all the projectors, and have modern CPU and GPU power, alignment will be a few seconds of flashing patterns as the room model is built. Thereafter, as long as you don't move too far from your initial position in the room, the geometry should be good.
The wall projections will probably be somewhat low-rez for now, but that will improve as projectors improve. Even with a low-rez environment, you'll have much better situational awareness in games. (In other words, you can see when somebody is about to attack you from behind.) Any game with group melee combat can benefit from this. Impressive.
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Prior Art: Check UIUC Cave (Score:5, Informative)
Beckman Institute Cave link: http://isl.beckman.illinois.edu/Labs/CAVE/CAVE.html [illinois.edu]
Quake II in cave: http://www.visbox.com/prajlich/caveQuake/ [visbox.com]
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I played in said CAVE. Mod parent up!
Re:Prior Art: Check UIUC Cave (Score:4, Informative)
Ye another ill-informed, totally incorrect post modded to +5 informative by clueless mods.
You do NOT PATENT AN IDEA OR CONCEPT, such as "playing a game in a room". You patent HOW YOU DO IT.
Even a cursory look at the link you provided and the actual patent application shows they are not even similar.
The link you provided says they use an "Intersense IS-900 ultrasonic/accelerometer-based tracking system". Claim 1 of the patent says they use a camera. Those are not the same.
The link you provided clearly shows they are using flat, carefully positioned white walls. The patent says that they use the camera "to compensate for the topography of the environmental surface". A different claim states that they "compensate for the color of the environmental surface".
They also talk about things like "shielding the user from the light by detecting his position". In other words, when the user is facing the projector, block out the image that would displayed on his face so as to not blind him. Clearly they don't have to do this in the cave system since it is using rear-projection.
When oh when is the slashdot crowd going to learn what patents are, what they protect, and what prior art is and is not? Something in a movie or science-fiction book is NOT prior art. Something that has the same end result but gets there in a different way is NOT prior art.
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NOT a patent, not just CAVE (Score:1)
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problem is someone was bound to think of that eventually
Someone is bound to think of everything eventually. That's not a reason to deny someone a patent.
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What about VR Glasses? (Score:2)
Aren't VR glasses better? The room in the article looks larger than my entire flat - not to mention it's full of stuff, not empty walls.
While this is cool for dedicated locations, and especially shared experiences, I think average home users would be better off with some cool 3D glasses, which seems to be sony's approach.
So they actually made this, right? (Score:2)
BSOD? (Score:1)
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Old news (Score:1)
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I have actually seen demos of old games like Quake or Doom in a CAVE.
The fact that Micro$oft has been granted this pattern shows once again how f***i*g incompetent the US Patent Bureau is.
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OP's Article snippet misleading. (Score:1)
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how good will a flight sime be now... o wait
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If it's a patent issue, btw, I guess I'm not bothered much by large scale, high risk, research heavy patents. I'm more bothered by the stuf
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I think you saw that in a dream.
Think about making a 'treadmill' that allows 360 degree movement. You are ether standing inside a ball or on top of one.
That said, I own an old VR helmet. You're going to want to sit and have solidly mounted controls in your hands. Less pukey that way.
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Think about making a 'treadmill' that allows 360 degree movement. You are ether standing inside a ball or on top of one.
There is one system (Russian) that does put you in a giant transparent sphere. (Saw this at Nextfest)
However, there are some other systems for doing this that work pretty well...
One is a treadmill, actually two, set at right angles, one sort of "riding on" the other (don't know the exact mechanism, just saw the video) As you walk, say north, the N-S treadmill runs south. If you turn west, the E-W treadmill starts moving you east. If you move on a diagonal they both run in opposition to your movement to keep
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... until the top treadmill hits the end of the lower one, and falls off.
There's no way it could work how you describe.
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I'm sorry I failed to describe it to your satisfaction. You did read my disclaimer?:
"One is a treadmill, actually two, set at right angles, one sort of "riding on" the other (don't know the exact mechanism, just saw the video)"
Please watch these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=moq1Dclza90 [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rtX2pWRh6w [youtube.com]