Virtual reality cinema-immersive movie watching for headmounted displays

Abstract

Peripheral-vision expanded images are streamed to a video streaming client. The peripheral-vision expanded images are generated from source images in reference to view directions of the viewer at respective time points. View direction data is collected and received in real time while the viewer is viewing display images derived from the peripheral-vision expanded images. A second peripheral-vision expanded image is generated from a second source image in reference to a second view direction of the viewer at a second time point. The second peripheral-vision expanded image has a focal-vision image portion covering the second view direction of the viewer and a peripheral-vision image portion outside the focal-vision image portion. The second peripheral-vision expanded image is transmitted to the video streaming client.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for providing expanded vision image data, comprising:
 receiving a source image from a source image stream.   applying a non-linear expansion mapping to the source image to generate a vision expanded image that covers a device-specific field of view supported by an image display on which the vision expanded image is to be rendered;   wherein the non-linear expansion mapping generates less spatial distortions in a specific image portion of the vision expanded image as compared with remaining image portions outside the specific image portion of the vision expanded image; wherein the specific image portion is identified using a tracked view direction of a viewer of the image display;   causing the vision expanded image to be rendered on the image display.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the non-linear expansion mapping relates to one or more of: warping operations, reverse fisheye mapping, linear stretching along a spatial direction, projection operations, conformal mapping, projections analogous to those used in connection with architecture drawings, panini projections, or other projection operations. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the image display is provided by a wearable device. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the vision expanded image represents one of: a part of two-dimensional (2D) video content or a part of three dimensional (3D) video content. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the specific image portion of the vision expanded image is of a relatively high resolution as compared with the remaining image portions of the vision expanded image. 
     
     
         6 . A method for processing and rendering expanded vision image data, comprising:
 receiving a vision expanded image generated from applying a non-linear expansion mapping to a source image, wherein the vision expanded image covers a device-specific field of view supported by an image display on which the vision expanded image is to be rendered;   generating a display image from the vision expanded image, the vision expanded image including a specific image portion with less spatial distortions remaining image portions of the vision expanded image;   wherein the specific image portion is identified using a tracked view direction of a viewer of the image display;   rendering the display image on the image display.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the specific image portion and the remaining image portions of the vision expanded image are stored in at least two different frame buffers. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the specific image portion of the vision expanded image covers the viewer's view direction predicted for a specific time point at which the vision expanded image is to be rendered. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the non-linear expansion mapping relates to one or more of: warping operations, reverse fisheye mapping, linear stretching along a spatial direction, projection operations, conformal mapping, projections analogous to those used in connection with architecture drawings, panini projections, or other projection operations. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the image display is provided by a wearable device. 
     
     
         11 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, storing software instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 1 . 
     
     
         12 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, storing software instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 3 . 
     
     
         13 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, storing software instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 4 . 
     
     
         14 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, storing software instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 5 . 
     
     
         15 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, storing software instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 7 . 
     
     
         16 . A computing device comprising one or more processors and one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media, wherein the media store a set of instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in method  claim 1 . 
     
     
         17 . A computing device comprising one or more processors and one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media, wherein the media store software instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 3 . 
     
     
         18 . A computing device comprising one or more processors and one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media, wherein the media store software instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 4 . 
     
     
         19 . A computing device comprising one or more processors and one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media, wherein the media store software instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 5 . 
     
     
         20 . A computing device comprising one or more processors and one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media, wherein the media store software instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 7 .