Method and system for making a selection in 3D virtual environment

摘要

Techniques for selecting a portion of a 3D virtual environment are disclosed, where the portion of the 3D virtual environment may be one or more objects in the 3D virtual environment or one of scenes in the 3D virtual environment. A motion sensitive device (controller) is used. The controller generates sensor data sufficient to derive position and orientation of the controller in six degrees of freedom. In one embodiment, when selecting the portion of the 3D virtual environment, the controller generates a ray to an interaction of a display screen provided to display the 3D virtual environment, wherein the ray is further projected into the 3D virtual environment by a ray tracing technique as if the user had a real laser pointer that crosses from the physical world into the 3D virtual environment being displayed. Further a user is optionally to use a secondary input device to select one or more points or objects in a 3D space to control a distance along the ray being used.

主权项

1. A system for a user to select a first portion of a computer-implemented 3D virtual environment, the system comprising:
a hand-held controller including one or more self-contained inertial sensors generating sensor signals when the controller is caused to move, in a physical world, around before a display device configured to display a second portion of the 3D virtual environment; a camera positioned to look at the controller and configured to generate image data containing a representation of the controller; and a processing device, configured to receive the sensor signals and the image data, and configured to execute computer-executable instructions to:
compute a position and an orientation of the controller based on a predetermined size and location of the display device relative to the camera in response to the sensor signals and image data;compute a virtual ray into the 3D virtual environment, responsive to the position and the orientation of the controller; andselect the first portion of the 3D virtual environment with reference to the virtual ray,wherein an additional input from another controller is provided by the user to control a distance along the virtual ray used to select the first portion of the 3D virtual environment.