Position tracking in a virtual world

摘要

Positions of avatars in a virtual world may be communicated to clients using multiple bitcode resolutions to minimize required communication bandwidth between a virtual world server and virtual world clients, thereby allowing transmission of all avatars' positions to every other player. Lower resolution bitcodes may be based on a lower resolution grid overlaid on the virtual world, whereas higher resolution bitcodes may be based on a higher resolution grid overlaid on the virtual world. In one example, a virtual world server may determine the bitcode resolution to use based on a distance between an avatar to which the position information is to be sent and other avatars in the virtual world. Resolution may include spatial resolution, where nearer avatars' locations are provided with higher resolution bitcodes, or temporal resolution, where the transmission frequency of position information is greater for nearer avatars. Position information in a transmission stream may further be condensed by using run length encoding.

主权项

1. A method for communicating position movement information for one or more avatars in a virtual world, the method comprising:
determining a grid resolution at which to report position movement information for a first avatar, wherein the grid resolution is based on selecting a grid from a plurality of grids each having a different grid resolution, wherein each grid corresponds to the virtual world; determining the position movement information of the first avatar by comparing a current position of the avatar in the selected grid with a previous position of the avatar in the selected grid; and transmitting to a client not associated with the first avatar, the position movement information of the first avatar in the resolution of the selected grid.