Traditionally, virtual reality systems use 3D computer graphics to model and render virtual environments in real-time. This approach usually requires laborious modeling and expensive special purpose rendering hardware. The rendering quality and scene complexity are often limited because of the real-time constraint. This paper presents a new approach which uses 360-degree cylindrical panoramic images to compose a virtual environment. The panoramic image is digitally warped on-the-fly to simulate camera panning and zooming. The panoramic images can be created with computer rendering, specialized panoramic cameras or by "stitching" together overlapping photographs taken with a regular camera. Walking in a space is currently accomplished by "hopping" to different panoramic points. The image-based approach has been used in the commercial product QuickTime VR, a virtual reality extension to Apple Computer's QuickTime digital multimedia framework. The paper describes the architecture, the file format, the authoring process and the interactive players of the VR system. In addition to panoramic viewing, the system includes viewing of an object from different directions and hit-testing through orientation-independent hot spots. CR

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QuickTime VR: an image-based approach to virtual environment navigation

Newness and distinctiveness is claimed in the features of ornamentation as shown inside the broken line circle in the accompanying representation.

Display screen or portion thereof with graphical user interface

A mobile terminal including a body; a touchscreen provided to a front and extending to side of the body and configured to display content; and a controller configured to detect one side of the body comes into contact with one side of an external terminal, display a first area on the touchscreen corresponding to a contact area of the body and the external terminal and a second area including the content, receive an input of moving the content displayed in the second area to the first area, display the content in the first area, and share the content in the first area with the external terminal.

Mobile terminal and method for controlling the same

A method and apparatus wherein a software scheduling agent resides on a communication network and/or client device, such as location-aware wireless communication appliances, television set top boxes, or other end user client devices is disclosed. The software scheduling agent is part of a probabilistic modeling system in which the scheduler operates to perform constrained random variation with selection. Digital content is generated, organized, and stored on the communication network and/or the client devices. An electronic digital content wrapper, which holds information in the form of data and metadata related to the digital content is associated with each item of digital content. Contextual profiles for each user and each item of digital content are established by the users and the network and maintained by a service provider on the communication network. The software scheduling agent compares the contextual digital content profile for each item of digital content to the contextual user profile for each user to determine which digital content should be offered for presentation to each user. The comparison and determination of which items of digital content should be offered for presentation to which users is performed by a process of constrained random variation. After the software scheduling agent determines which items of digital content would most likely be relevant or interesting to the user, the digital content is transmitted, either in whole or in part, at predetermined times over the communication network to the appropriate client devices. The digital content is then stored, either in whole or in part, in cache memory on the client device until an appropriate time when the digital content is digitally packaged and presented to particular users over those user's client devices.

Method and apparatus for scheduling presentation of digital content on a personal communication device

Media objects are transformed into active, connected objects via identifiers embedded into them or their containers. In the context of a user's playback experience, a decoding process extracts the identifier from a media object and possibly additional context information and forwards it to a server. The server, in turn, maps the identifier to an action, such as returning metadata, re-directing the request to one or more other servers, requesting information from another server to identify the media object, etc. The linking process applies to broadcast objects as well as objects transmitted over networks in streaming and compressed file formats.

Connected audio and other media objects

A video editing system comprising a computer system having a mass storage and a display, a video source, such as a video cassette recorder (VCR), camera, or optical disc player, and a video processor/controller linking the computer to the video source. The computer system functions under the direction of standard operating software and video editing software which provide the user with an interface for controlling both playback and clip editing of video information from the video source. Upon initialization of the editing system, the user is presented with at least a video window for displaying the video information, a control window for regulating playback of the video information, and a clip list window having a number of rows of edit windows organized under begin, end, and clip columns. The user controls playback of video from the video source within the video window through manipulation of standard playback direction and speed indicators. To mark a video frame in the video window as either a begin or end point of a video clip, the user clicks on the desired video frame with a mouse associated with the editing system. A small digitized version of the requested video frame is then created and attached to the cursor. This small digitized frame (SDF) can then be moved in tandem with the cursor from the video window to an edit window and released. Begin and end points of clips are created by releasing an SDF within an edit window under the appropriate column. Releasing an SDF within an edit window under the clip column causes that SDF to be entered as both the begin and end point of the clip. Numerous rows of edit windows can be created in a similar manner. When the begin and end edit windows in the same row are filled with different SDFs, the video frames between those respective points are digitized and automatically inserted into the clip column for that row in an animated form. SDFs can likewise be directly manipulated to modify the content or sequence of edit windows or to change the video frame being played within the video window.

Apparatus and method for editing a video recording by selecting and displaying video clips

A method and apparatus for searching for multimedia files in a distributed database and for displaying results of the search based on the context and content of the multimedia files.

Display of media previews

We describe an interface prototype, the Hierarchical Video Magnifier, which allows users to work with a video source at fine-levels of detail while maintaining an awareness of temporal context. The technique allows the user to recursively magnify the temporal resolution of a video source while preserving the levels of magnification in a spatial hierarchy. We discuss how the ability to inspect and manipulate hierarchical views of temporal magnification affords a powerful tool for navigating, analyzing and editing video streams.

A magnifier tool for video data

A system for displaying a sequential stream of information on a single display. The system includes a computer for defining an first area on the display and for displaying a first sample of the information within the first area. The first sample represents a first segment of the information. The computer further is for displaying a second sample of the information within the first area of the display. The second sample represents a second segment of the information. The computer is further for displaying a third sample of the information within the first area of the display. The third sample represents a third segment of the information. The first segment includes the second segment and the third segment.

Temporal event viewing and editing system

A method and apparatus for generating and observing a transition between a first and second sequence of information. The invention is practiced on a computer controlled display system and a computer controlled sound generation system. The method includes providing the first stream and the second stream of information to the computer system; creating a template for modifying an audio signal during a transition from the first stream of information to the second stream of information; specifying the duration of the transition and specifying at least a portion of the first stream and a portion of the second stream for the transition; creating an audio transition using the audio template for modifying an audio signal and using the portion of the first stream and the portion of second stream. Another aspect of the invention includes a method for controlling the rate of transistion from the first stream of digital information to the second stream of digital information which method includes: providing the first stream of information and second stream of information to the computer system; providing a rate transition template for specifying the rate of transition during the transistion; specifying the duration of the transistion and at least a portion of the first stream and the second stream for the transition; creating the transition using the rate template and the portions of the first and second streams, wherein the rate transition template includes a visual representation of the rate of transition over the duration of the transition.

Michael Mills

Papers

Apparatus and method for editing a video recording by selecting and displaying video clips

Display of media previews

A magnifier tool for video data

Temporal event viewing and editing system

Method and apparatus for transitioning between sequences of digital information