Did You Know...
...Chester Carlson was a patent agent who tired of having to make multiple copies of patent applications using the only duplication method available at the time: carbon paper. In 1959 he came up with a new copying system and took it to IBM for evaluation. The "experts" at IBM determined potential sales to be only 5,000 units because people wouldn't want to use a bulky machine when they had carbon paper. Carlson's invention was the xerography process, the company founded on the system is Xerox.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8441486 | Position tracking in a virtual world 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 t... | 05/14/2013 |
| 8436861 | Pose-based collision fly-papering: a method of simulating objects in computer animation Methods and an apparatus allow animators to control the extent by which scripted character motions affect simulated objects' motions. The simulated objects are connected to the character or non-simulated object, such as clothing or hair, and the motion of the simula... | 05/07/2013 |
| 8436860 | Techniques for using depth maps Techniques for determining a position of a component of an animated object relative to a surface represented by a depth map and updating the state of the animated object based upon the determination. Updating the state of an animated object may change one or more of... | 05/07/2013 |
| 8427484 | Authored motion transitions An animation creator authors a transition between two different pre-authored motions of a degree of freedom of an object such as an animatronic or virtual character. The author selects an arbitrary position to begin the transition and the transition ends at the posi... | 04/23/2013 |
| 8416247 | Increasing the number of advertising impressions in an interactive environment Increasing a number of advertising impressions in a system configured to facilitate user interaction with an interactive environment containing one or more advertising targets is described. A scene of a portion of the simulated environment is displayed from a camera... | 04/09/2013 |
| 8390629 | Methods and apparatus for designing animatronics units from articulated computer generated characters A method for specifying a design for an animatronics unit includes receiving motion data comprising artistically determined motions, determining a design for construction of at least a portion of the animatronics unit in response to the motion data, and outputting t... | 03/05/2013 |
| 8390628 | Facial animation using motion capture data Methods and apparatus for facial animation using motion capture data are described herein. A mathematic solution based on minimizing a metric reduces the number of motion capture markers needed to accurately translate motion capture data to facial animation. A set o... | 03/05/2013 |
| 8390630 | Avatar eye control in a multi-user animation environment In a multi-participant modeled virtual reality environment, avatars are modeled beings that include moveable eyes creating the impression of an apparent gaze direction. Control of eye movement may be performed autonomously using software to select and prioritize tar... | 03/05/2013 |
| 8379029 | Looping motion space registration for real-time character animation A method for generating a looping motion space for real-time character animation may include determining a plurality of motion clips to include in the looping motion space and determining a number of motion cycles performed by a character object depicted in each of ... | 02/19/2013 |
| 8379030 | Computer graphics variable transformation interface A transformation region is displayed around a selection of knots defining one or more computer graphics variable curves. The transformation region includes transformation handles enabling the modification of the transformation region shape. The transformation region... | 02/19/2013 |
| 8373706 | Real-time goal-directed performed motion alignment for computer animated characters A method for real-time, goal-directed performed motion alignment for computer animated characters. A sequence of periodic locomotion may be seamlessly aligned with an arbitrarily placed and rotated non-periodic performed motion. A rendering application generates a s... | 02/12/2013 |
| 8363057 | Real-time goal-directed performed motion alignment for computer animated characters A method for real-time, goal-directed performed motion alignment for computer animated characters. A sequence of periodic locomotion may be seamlessly aligned with an arbitrarily placed and rotated non-periodic performed motion. A rendering application generates a s... | 01/29/2013 |
| 8358311 | Interpolation between model poses using inverse kinematics The pose of the model at an evaluation time is determined by interpolating pose attributes of the unconstrained pose degrees of freedom from previously defined poses. A neutral value of an attractor function at the evaluation time is based at least on the pose attri... | 01/22/2013 |
| 8350860 | Real-time goal-directed performed motion alignment for computer animated characters A method for real-time, goal-directed performed motion alignment for computer animated characters. A sequence of periodic locomotion may be seamlessly aligned with an arbitrarily placed and rotated non-periodic performed motion. A rendering application generates a s... | 01/08/2013 |
| 8350861 | Method and system for simulating character A method and system for simulating a character is provided. The method of simulating a character including: optimizing motion data by using a displacement mapping and a Proportional Derivative (PD) control; and performing controller training by using the optimized m... | 01/08/2013 |
| 8334872 | Inverse kinematics for motion-capture characters A method for a computer system comprising receiving a displacement for a first object model surface from a user determined in response to a first physical motion captured pose, determining a weighted combination of a first displacement group and a second displacemen... | 12/18/2012 |
| 8319779 | System and method for controlling animation by tagging objects within a game environment A game developer can “tag” an item in the game environment. When an animated character walks near the “tagged” item, the animation engine can cause the character's head to turn toward the item, and mathematically computes what needs to be done in order to ma... | 11/27/2012 |
| 8319778 | Variable motion blur associated with animation variables Variable motion blur is created by varying the evaluation time used to determine the poses of objects according to motion blur parameters when evaluating a blur frame. A blur parameter can be associated with one or more objects, portions of objects, or animation var... | 11/27/2012 |
| 8314799 | Enhanced motion behavior framework An enhanced motion behavior framework, in which an input is received from a user corresponding to an object to be animated and one or more animation parameters to be applied to the object, the one or more animation parameters are applied to the object, and an animat... | 11/20/2012 |
| 8314800 | Programmable light beam shape altering device using separate programmable micromirrors for each primary color Three-digital micromirror devices (“DMD”) are used to alter the shape of light that is projected onto a stage. The DMDs each receive a primary color and selectively reflects some light of that color, thereby shaping the light that is projected onto the stage. Th... | 11/20/2012 |
| 8289331 | Asymmetric animation links Asymmetric animation links control motion propagation through motion element graphs of models. Asymmetric animation links have direction attributes. When a motion element is moved, the influence of this motion propagates away from this motion element through the mot... | 10/16/2012 |
| 8259117 | Avatar eye control in a multi-user animation environment In a multi-participant modeled virtual reality environment, avatars are modeled beings that include moveable eyes creating the impression of an apparent gaze direction. Control of eye movement may be performed autonomously using software to select and prioritize tar... | 09/04/2012 |
| 8253746 | Determine intended motions It may be desirable to apply corrective data to aspects of captured image or the user-performed gesture for display of a visual representation that corresponds to the corrective data. The captured motion may be any motion in the physical space that is captured by th... | 08/28/2012 |
| 8253745 | Systems and methods for creating and using modeless animation manipulation rigs Systems and methods for custom designing modeless rigs or sets of object control elements that can be used when manipulating one or more objects. Users define object control rigs that can be used to perform specific object manipulation tasks for the user when manipu... | 08/28/2012 |
| 8253747 | User interface for controlling animation of an object A user can control the animation of an object via an interface that includes a control area and a user-manipulable control element. In one embodiment, the control area includes an ellipse, and the user-manipulable control element includes an arrow. In yet another em... | 08/28/2012 |
| 8232999 | Fast oceans at near infinite resolution The surface of a body of water can be animated by deconstructing a master wave model into several layer models and then reconstructing the layer models to form an optimized wave model. A wave model is obtained, which describes the wave surfaces in a body of water. T... | 07/31/2012 |
| 8223156 | Time dependent virtual universe avatar rendering Methods, devices, program products and systems are disclosed for displaying multiple virtual universe avatar states. Each of a plurality of avatar states of a first avatar of a first virtual universe user are stored in a storage medium as a function of a time of eac... | 07/17/2012 |
| 8223155 | Method for simulating large numbers of spherical bodies interacting A method for use in computer graphics includes receiving data representative of a plurality of particles. For each particle, the method further includes calculating a time at which a collision will occur based on a current trajectory of the particle. For pairs of pa... | 07/17/2012 |
| 8217949 | Hybrid analytic and sample-based rendering of motion blur in computer graphics A contribution of a geometric element's attribute to a value of the image sample is determined analytically for an analytic dimension of evaluation and using sampling for a discrete dimension of evaluation. Motion blur effects are rendered by analytically determinin... | 07/10/2012 |
| 8199152 | Combining multiple session content for animation libraries A computer-implemented method includes comparing content captured during one session and content captured during another session. A surface feature of an object represented in the content of one session corresponds to a surface feature of an object represented in th... | 06/12/2012 |
| 8179396 | System and methods for rule-based volume rendition and navigation Certain embodiments of the present invention provide a method for clinical presentation of a radiological study including: associating a customizable set of rules with image data corresponding to at least a portion of the radiological study; and rendering automatica... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8139068 | Three-dimensional animation of soft tissue of characters using controls associated with a surface mesh A face, as well as any other soft tissue of a character, can be animated much in the same way that a skeleton is animated by creating a soft tissue solver attached to the surface mesh. In particular, deformation objects are associated with regions of the surface mes... | 03/20/2012 |
| 8134560 | Method for avatar wandering in a computer based interactive environment A method for avatar wandering in a computer based interactive environment including for each avatar within a range of a current avatar, obtaining profiles of a user represented by the avatar, for each profile of the user represented by the avatar that has a same pro... | 03/13/2012 |
| 8106910 | Method for correct reproduction of moving spatial images on a flat screen A method for correct reproduction of moving three-dimensional (3D) scenes observed by a viewer on displays showing moving three-dimensional scenes relating to video games, animated cartoons, simulators for drivers or pilots, etc. The main concept of the invention is... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8054312 | Material for motion capture costumes and props Capturing motion using motion capture cameras comprises: coupling a plurality of markers to an actor; allowing a material to be positioned between the actor and the motion capture cameras, wherein the material is selected to allow the motion capture cameras to captu... | 11/08/2011 |
| 8049757 | Image processing device, image processing method and information storage medium To control screen display using moving pictures for a plurality of users. Respective moving pictures for a plurality of users are acquired, and each of the acquired moving pictures are displayed on a screen. Display content for the screen is controlled... | 11/01/2011 |
| 8049758 | Sensing ball game machine A sensing baseball game apparatus (10) has a game machine (12) connected to a television monitor (18). A bat input device (32) is provided with an acceleration sensor. An acceleration signal is transmitted by an infrared-ray LED (34 | 11/01/2011 |
| 8035644 | Method for embedding animation in electronic mail and websites Provided is a method for providing animation in electronic communications. An image is generated by capturing multiple photographs from a camera or video camera typically fixed in one position. The first photograph is called the “naked photo.” Using a graphics p... | 10/11/2011 |
| 8022955 | Operability verification apparatus, operability verification method, and computer-readable storage medium storing operability verification program An operability verification apparatus includes a work plane generation section that generates a work plane on a virtual space where a three-dimensional model of an equipment to be verified is disposed; a plane display section where a two-dimensional image on a work ... | 09/20/2011 |
| 8022954 | Programmable light beam shape altering device using separate programmable micromirrors for each primary color Three-digital micromirror devices (“DMD”) are used to alter the shape of light that is projected onto a stage. The DMDs each receive a primary color and selectively reflects some light of that color, thereby shaping the light that is projected onto the stage. Th... | 09/20/2011 |
