Apparently, Apple doesn’t want to limit the spatial computing experience to just the Vision Pro. The company has been granted a patent for an “Augmented Reality Room Projector.”
About the patent filing
In the patent Apple notes that virtual reality (VR) allows users to experience and/or interact with an immersive artificial environment, such that the user feels as if they were physically in that environment. For example, virtual reality systems may display stereoscopic scenes to users in order to create an illusion of depth, and a computer may adjust the scene content in real-time to provide the illusion of the user moving within the scene. When the user views images through a virtual reality system, the user may feel like they’re moving within the scenes from a first-person point of view.
Similarly, mixed reality (MR) or augmented reality (AR) systems combine computer generated information (referred to as virtual content) with real world images or a real world view to augment, or add content to, a user’s view of the world. The simulated environments of VR and/or the mixed environments of MR may be utilized to provide an interactive user experience for multiple applications, such as applications that add virtual content to a real-time view of the viewer’s environment, interacting with virtual training environments, gaming, remotely controlling drones or other mechanical systems, viewing digital media content, interacting with the Internet, or the like.
Apple’s patent involves a “spatial light” projection system for projecting VR, AR, and MR scenes.
Summary of the patent filing
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent filing: “A spatial light system that may, for example, be used to project image content onto surfaces of a room. The system may include two or more projection units for emitting light onto surfaces within a room. The system may include a controller and two or more projection units, each module including an LED array, an array of light pipes, and a condenser lens.
“Two or more projection units may be connected to a flexible strip that provides power and data (e.g., serial data) to the projection units, a composable light emitter unit, or a bulb-form projection system. Two or more flex strips or composable light emitter units may be connected together to provide a serially-connected, flexible modular architecture for spatial light systems that allow the projection units to be conformed to a variety of configurations and shapes.”
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