System and method for managing multimedia data

摘要

A networking system and method is disclosed in this specification. The system hosts a virtual environment that is populated with avatars. Each avatar displays a video stream of a corresponding user and defines a virtual view point that represents the user's perspective of the virtual environment. The system implements a method that comprises monitoring movement of the avatars within the virtual environment and capturing a media stream from the virtual view point of each avatar as a corresponding user navigates the virtual environment. The captured video stream is relayed to a user's local client and displayed to the user.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method for dynamically creating multimedia data streams for display on at least one client comprising one or more graphical user interfaces, the method comprising:
establishing a multiparty conference between a plurality of clients by creating data connections between a plurality of clients and at least one server, each client and server comprising a processor; at a processor, generating virtual environment video data representing a virtual environment, the virtual environment video data including data representing, a 3D virtual environment, a plurality of avatars in the virtual environment, each avatar being associated with a client in the multiparty conference; at at least one server or at at least one client, receiving a user video data stream from at least one client in the multiparty conference the user video data stream representing a video image of a user associated with at least one client in the multiparty conference; at the at least one server or the at least one client, receiving from at least one client user input positional data representing the position and orientation of the avatar corresponding to the at least one client within the virtual environment and, transmitting the user input positional data to at least one client in the conference; at a first client:
using the position and orientation of the avatar associated with the first client within the virtual environment to calculate a virtual field for view of the avatar within the virtual environment;receiving the transmitted positional data for at least one further client in the conference;using the received positional data to determine the visibility of at least one avatar within the virtual environment associated with the at least one further client;dynamically generating a first media data stream for the first client, the first media data stream identifying visibility of avatars within the field of view; andtransmitting the first media data stream to the at least one server or the at least one client; at the at least one server or the at least one client, transmitting adjusted user video data streams based on the media data to the first client associated with the identified visible avatars; and at the at least one client, receiving the user video data streams and creating a multimedia data stream representing the virtual environment by combining the avatar video data streams with the virtual environment video data.