Sony Patent | Detection System

Patent: Detection System

Publication Number: 20190028690

Publication Date: 2019-01-24

Applicants: Sony

Abstract

A detection method and a detection apparatus are provided. The method includes detecting features of a user’s right and left eyes in a stereoscopic image pair of the user; detecting the image depths of the right and left eye features in the stereoscopic image pair; and comparing the detected depths. When the difference between the detected depths is less than a threshold difference, detecting the separation of the user’s eyes from the separation of the three dimensional positions of the right eye and left eye features is detected. The apparatus includes a feature detector to detect the features of the user’s eyes, a depth detector to detect the image depths, a comparator to compare the detected depths, and a separation detector to detect separation of the eyes from the separation of the three dimensional positions of the right and left eye features when the difference is less than the threshold.

Background

The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly or impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.

A head-mountable display (HMD) is one example of a head-mountable apparatus. In an HMD, an image or video display device is provided which may be worn on the head or as part of a helmet. Either one eye or both eyes are provided with small electronic display devices.

Although the original development of HMDs was perhaps driven by the military and professional applications of these devices, HMDs are becoming more popular for use by casual users in, for example, computer game or domestic computing applications.

HMDs can be used to view stereoscopic or other content. The successful portrayal of stereoscopic content to the user can depend, at least in part, on the extent to which display parameters of the content are matched to the eye separation (such as the inter-pupillary distance or IPD) of the HMD wearer. There is therefore a need for a system to detect the eye separation of a user.

The foregoing paragraphs have been provided by way of general introduction, and are not intended to limit the scope of the following claims. The described embodiments, together with further advantages, will be best understood by reference to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Various aspects and features of the present disclosure are defined in the appended claims and within the text of the accompanying description and include at least a video server, a head mountable display, a system, a method of operating a video server or a head-mountable apparatus as well as a computer program and a video signal.