Google Patent | Spherical Video in a Web Browser

Patent: Spherical Video in a Web Browser

Publication Number: 20190042582

Publication Date: 2019-02-07

Applicants: Google

Abstract

Implementations disclose methods and systems for rendering, by a browser, a content item projected on a mesh. A method includes providing, by a browser executing on a user device, an application programming interface (API) to communicate with a web application that includes a user interface to present a content item on the user device; receiving, by the browser from the web application via the API, an instruction to project the content item on a mesh, where the instruction identifies the content item and the mesh; rendering, by the browser and without involvement of the web application, a first frame of the content item projected on the mesh in a first orientation; and causing, by the browser, the rendered first frame to be displayed on the user device.

Background

A web application may receive a user request to display a content item projected on a mesh, such as a 360-degree video projected on a spherical mesh. The web application may render frames of the content item projected on the mesh and display the rendered frames on a user device.

Summary

Aspects of the present disclosure improve rendering technology by providing, by a browser, an application programming interface (API) and receiving, by the browser via the API from a web application, an instruction to project a content item on a mesh. The browser renders frames of the content item projected on the mesh based on the instruction. The browser may receive and mappings of user input to orientations via the API from the web application and render frames of the content item projected on the mesh in different orientations further based on the mappings and user input.