Patents by Inventor Huw Bowles

Huw Bowles has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 9299185
    Abstract: An enhanced system and method for rendering virtual surface is disclosed. A grid may be constructed in a world space to provide positions that facilitate the rendering of the virtual surface. The grid may be constructed by intersecting circular lines and radial lines. The distance of circular lines with respect to one another may be determined by intersecting tessellation level and binary tree. Motion caused by a viewpoint transformation may be compensated by adjusting the grid. Rotational change of the viewpoint may compensated by rotating the grid according a degree of grid edge. Translational change of the viewpoint may be compensated by moving or rotating the grid in a direction opposite to the translational change.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 29, 2016
    Assignee: DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
    Inventor: Huw Bowles
  • Patent number: 9171390
    Abstract: In an animation processing system, generating images to be viewable on a display using a computer that are generated based on scene geometry obtained from computer readable storage and animation data representing changes over time of scene geometry elements, but also images can be modified to include shading that is a function of positions of objects at other than the current instantaneous time for a frame render such that the motion effect shading would suggest motion of at least one of the elements to a viewer of the generated images. Motion effects provide, based on depiction parameters and/or artist inputs, shading that varies for at least some received animation data, received motion depiction parameters, for at least one pixel, a pixel color is rendered based on motion effect program output and at least some received scene geometry, such that the output contributes to features that would suggest the motion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 26, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2015
    Assignees: DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC., ETH Zürich (Eidgenöessische Technische Hochschule Zürich)
    Inventors: Robert Sumner, Johannes Schmid, Markus Gross, Huw Bowles
  • Patent number: 8885021
    Abstract: A method is provided for an optimized stereoscopic camera with low processing overhead, especially suitable for real-time applications. By constructing a viewer-centric and scene-centric model, the mapping of scene depth to perceived depth may be defined as an optimization problem, for which a solution is analytically derived based on constraints to stereoscopic camera parameters including interaxial separation and convergence distance. The camera parameters may thus be constrained prior to rendering to maintain a desired perceived depth volume around a stereoscopic display, for example to ensure user comfort or provide artistic effects. To compensate for sudden scene depth changes due to unpredictable camera or object movements, as may occur with real-time applications such as video games, the constraints may also be temporally interpolated to maintain a linearly corrected and approximately constant perceived depth range over time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 10, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 11, 2014
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Thomas Oskam, Alexander Hornung, Huw Bowles, Kenny Mitchell, Markus Gross
  • Patent number: 8624891
    Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for performing image space reprojection iteratively. An insignificant parallax threshold depth is computed for a source image. Portions of the image having depth values greater than the insignificant parallax threshold depth may be shifted uniformly to produce corresponding portions of the reprojection (target) image. An iterative fixed-point reprojection algorithm is used to reproject the portions of the source image having depth values less than or equal to the insignificant parallax threshold depth. The fixed point reprojection algorithm quickly converges on the best pixel in the source image for each pixel in a target image representing an offset view of the source image. An additional rendering pass is employed to fill disoccluded regions of the target image, where the reprojection algorithm fails to converge.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Huw Bowles, Kenny Mitchell, Robert Sumner, Wojciech Jarosz, Markus Gross
  • Publication number: 20130176397
    Abstract: A method is provided for an optimized stereoscopic camera with low processing overhead, especially suitable for real-time applications. By constructing a viewer-centric and scene-centric model, the mapping of scene depth to perceived depth may be defined as an optimization problem, for which a solution is analytically derived based on constraints to stereoscopic camera parameters including interaxial separation and convergence distance. The camera parameters may thus be constrained prior to rendering to maintain a desired perceived depth volume around a stereoscopic display, for example to ensure user comfort or provide artistic effects. To compensate for sudden scene depth changes due to unpredictable camera or object movements, as may occur with real-time applications such as video games, the constraints may also be temporally interpolated to maintain a linearly corrected and approximately constant perceived depth range over time.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 10, 2012
    Publication date: July 11, 2013
    Applicant: DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
    Inventors: Thomas Oskam, Alexander Hornung, Huw Bowles, Kenny Mitchell, Markus Gross
  • Publication number: 20120182299
    Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for performing image space reprojection iteratively. An insignificant parallax threshold depth is computed for a source image. Portions of the image having depth values greater than the insignificant parallax threshold depth may be shifted uniformly to produce corresponding portions of the reprojection (target) image. An iterative fixed-point reprojection algorithm is used to reproject the portions of the source image having depth values less than or equal to the insignificant parallax threshold depth. The fixed point reprojection algorithm quickly converges on the best pixel in the source image for each pixel in a target image representing an offset view of the source image. An additional rendering pass is employed to fill disoccluded regions of the target image, where the reprojection algorithm fails to converge.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 17, 2011
    Publication date: July 19, 2012
    Inventors: Huw Bowles, Kenny Mitchell, Robert Sumner, Wojciech Jarosz, Markus Gross