Patents by Inventor Gregory Nichols

Gregory Nichols 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: 11848754
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches a method for delegating user access to one of a set of decentralized networked nodes that share a private permissioned blockchain data structure or a decentralized personal ledger. The method also includes a credentialing logic configured to receive from one of a set of decentralized networked nodes, authority to access a network node to invoke services that conduct operations using a private permissioned blockchain data structure or decentralized personal ledger to which access has been limited to users authorized by one of the set of decentralized networked nodes; and an access delegation logic configured to create a delegation of at least some of the authority to access the network node for a limited duration of time and to send the delegation to a recipient identified to receive delegated authority.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 7, 2022
    Date of Patent: December 19, 2023
    Assignee: LedgerDomain Inc.
    Inventors: Victor Bovee Dods, Benjamin James Taylor, Benjamin Gregory Nichols
  • Patent number: 11741215
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches an implementation for leveraging self-sovereign credentials held on mobile devices to provision credentials that empower one party (“recipient” or “user”, used synonymously herein) to obtain credentialed access to information and resources on behalf of another party (“sender” or “administrator”, used synonymously herein), without either party exposing private key information to each other or to the cloud. The sender is able to revoke user credentials at any time. Parties are able to leverage commodity hardware to automatically mutually authenticate their credentials and access available relevant options and workflows.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 7, 2022
    Date of Patent: August 29, 2023
    Assignee: LedgerDomain Inc.
    Inventors: Victor Bovee Dods, Benjamin James Taylor, Benjamin Gregory Nichols
  • Patent number: 11741216
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches a method for revocation of user credentials for controlling user access to a private permissioned blockchain data structure or decentralized personal ledger, comprising an administrative logic configured to de-configure user private keys from keystores of respective users. The administrative logic further comprises a revocation logic configured to receive a unique identifier linked to a keystore of a particular user in response to the keystore, and the revocation logic is further configured to revoke access of the keystore based on the unique identifier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 7, 2022
    Date of Patent: August 29, 2023
    Assignee: LedgerDomain Inc.
    Inventors: Victor Bovee Dods, Benjamin James Taylor, Benjamin Gregory Nichols
  • Patent number: 11736290
    Abstract: The disclosed technology teaches a method for managing user access to one of a set of decentralized networked nodes that share a private permissioned blockchain data structure or a decentralized personal ledger, to which access has been limited to users authorized by one of the set of decentralized networked nodes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 7, 2022
    Date of Patent: August 22, 2023
    Assignee: LedgerDomain Inc.
    Inventors: Victor Bovee Dods, Benjamin James Taylor, Benjamin Gregory Nichols
  • Publication number: 20210296968
    Abstract: A system for measuring temperature in an electric motor, including a stator with field windings in the electric motor and a circuit board proximate to the field windings. The system further includes one or more thermo-electric temperature responsive devices. The thermo-electric temperature devices are mountable onto a surface of the circuit board facing the field windings. The system further includes a thermally conductive, but non-electrically conductive material, connecting the one or more thermo-electric devices to the stator windings.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 19, 2020
    Publication date: September 23, 2021
    Inventors: Jeffery Todd BREWSTER, Steven Gregory NICHOLS, William Edward ANDERSON, IV
  • Patent number: 10789757
    Abstract: There is provided a method for ray-mediated illumination control. The method includes identifying a first activation region corresponding to one of an origin and a destination of a ray, where the ray is described by a ray data associated with the ray. The method further includes identifying a second activation region corresponding to the other one of the origin and the destination of the ray, interpreting an illumination rule for the ray based on at least one of the first activation region and the second activation region, and modifying an illumination in one of the first activation region and the second activation region based on the illumination rule and the ray data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 19, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises Inc.
    Inventors: Brent Burley, Christian Eisenacher, Sean Jenkins, Gregory Nichols, Andrew Selle, Charles Tappan, Henry A. Driskill, Brett W. Achorn
  • Patent number: 9934605
    Abstract: There is provided a scene rendering system and method for use by such a system to perform depth buffering for subsequent scene rendering. The system includes a memory storing a depth determination software including a reduced depth set identification software module, and a hardware processor configured to execute the depth determination software. The hardware processor is configured to execute the depth determination software to determine, before rendering a scene, a depth buffer based on at least one fixed depth identified for each element of a rendering framework for the scene. The hardware processor is further configured to render the scene using the depth buffer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 24, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 3, 2018
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Gregory Nichols, Brent Burley, Ralf Habel, David Adler
  • Publication number: 20170243393
    Abstract: There is provided a scene rendering system and method for use by such a system to perform depth buffering for subsequent scene rendering. The system includes a memory storing a depth determination software including a reduced depth set identification software module, and a hardware processor configured to execute the depth determination software. The hardware processor is configured to execute the depth determination software to determine, before rendering a scene, a depth buffer based on at least one fixed depth identified for each element of a rendering framework for the scene. The hardware processor is further configured to render the scene using the depth buffer.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 24, 2016
    Publication date: August 24, 2017
    Inventors: Gregory Nichols, Brent Burley, Ralf Habel, David Adler
  • Patent number: 9619922
    Abstract: There is provided a system and method of distribution caching for direct lights in a scene. The system including a memory and a processor configured to execute a rendering software application to shoot a plurality of rays through a scene that includes a plurality of lights, generate a plurality of cache points at different locations throughout the scene based on the shooting of the plurality of rays, compute a list of lights for each cache point from the plurality of cache points, the list of lights including lights from the plurality of lights that provide illumination at a location of the cache point, and store the plurality of cache points in a memory. The processor may further be configured to execute the rendering software application to render the scene using the cache point database.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 11, 2017
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Gregory Nichols, Peter Kutz, Christian Eisenacher
  • Patent number: 9613209
    Abstract: An anti-malware program monitors the behavior of a system after a system restore to determine the likelihood of a hidden infection of malicious code still existing after the system restore. The anti-malware program observes the dynamic behavior of the system by monitoring conditions that are likely to signify the possibility of an infection thereby necessitating the need to initiate anti-malware detection. The anti-malware program may observe the restoration history, system settings, malware infection history, to determine the likelihood of an existing hidden infection after a system restore.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 4, 2017
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC.
    Inventors: Vishal Kapoor, Jason Joyce, Gregory Nichols
  • Patent number: 9508315
    Abstract: There is provided a system and a method for ordering rays in rendered graphics for coherent shading. The method comprises recording, using the processor, intersection points for each of a plurality of directional queries in the memory, wherein each of the plurality of directional queries has one intersection point, organizing, using the processor, the intersection points in the memory into a plurality of elements, and grouping, using the processor, the intersection points in the memory by shading context. The method may further comprise shading the intersection points, wherein the shading is performed on a plurality of elements substantially concurrently. The shading context may include a volume of intersection points. In another implementation, the shading context may be one of texture ID, material ID, and element ID. Additionally, the texture ID may correspond to a mesh face ID.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Gregory Nichols, Brent Burley, Andrew Selle, Christian Eisenacher
  • Patent number: 9453563
    Abstract: A linear actuator includes a housing and a cover tube that is supported relative to the housing. A nut engages the cover tube so as to prevent rotation of the nut relative to the cover tube. A lead screw rotatably engages the nut, wherein rotation of the lead screw causes the nut to travel along the lead screw.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 27, 2016
    Assignee: DANAHER CORPORATION
    Inventors: Don C. Alfano, Robert Lipsett, Edward Myers, Gregory Nichols, Peter Paulsson
  • Publication number: 20160071308
    Abstract: There is provided a system and method of distribution caching for direct lights in a scene. The system including a memory and a processor configured to execute a rendering software application to shoot a plurality of rays through a scene that includes a plurality of lights, generate a plurality of cache points at different locations throughout the scene based on the shooting of the plurality of rays, compute a list of lights for each cache point from the plurality of cache points, the list of lights including lights from the plurality of lights that provide illumination at a location of the cache point, and store the plurality of cache points in a memory. The processor may further be configured to execute the rendering software application to render the scene using the cache point database.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 9, 2014
    Publication date: March 10, 2016
    Inventors: Gregory Nichols, Peter Kutz, Christian Eisenacher
  • Patent number: 9123154
    Abstract: A method is provided for distributed element rendering with particular application for feature films and other demanding content creation using scenes of high complexity requiring global illumination. A persistent centralized scheduler receives shading queries that are added to a request queue, determines an assignment of the request queue to hardware resources based on a resource map, and processes the request queue according to the assignment to render frames of one or more scenes. The resource map may be built by the scheduler and indicates local scene geometry cached for each of the hardware resources. By generating a full set of camera rays at each hardware resource, global illumination shading and other rendering can proceed independently against local geometry caches for high parallelism. Redundant computations are reduced through the scheduler, which may cache frequently requested rendering results including tessellation, shading, and level of detail.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 9, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2015
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Brent Burley, Andrew Selle, Christian Eisenacher, Gregory Nichols
  • Patent number: 9123162
    Abstract: A method is provided for integration cone tracing with particular application for feature films and other demanding content creation using scenes of high complexity requiring global illumination. Instead of using a conventional noise prone ray tracer, cones are intersected with a scene bounding hierarchy to determine intersecting scene geometry, and integration results are computed by directional sampling within the cones. As a result, the working data set may be reduced as the rendering may begin with a smaller set of cones as compared to the large number of rays required for acceptable filtering in a conventional ray tracer. Furthermore, by refining the cones during the rendering only on an as-needed basis according to an acceptable noise threshold and by sharing secondary cone bounces among primary cones, the processing workload and data set requirements may be kept to a reasonable level even for multiple global illumination passes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2015
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Brent Burley, Andrew Selle, Christian Eisenacher, Gregory Nichols
  • Patent number: 9058690
    Abstract: Some aspects of the disclosure include systems and methods for grouping rays into sets according to their directions. In some cases, the rays of the directional sets may then be organized into a hierarchy according to their origins and bounding cones are generated for the hierarchy nodes. The resulting bounding cone hierarchy may be intersected with a bounding volume hierarchy or other scene hierarchy.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 12, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 16, 2015
    Assignee: DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
    Inventors: Brent Burley, Christian Eisenacher, Gregory Nichols, Andrew Selle
  • Patent number: 9053582
    Abstract: A method is provided for streaming light propagation with particular application for feature films and other demanding content creation using scenes of high complexity requiring art directed global illumination. By attaching a data recording shader or equivalent functionality to any tracing based renderer that can provide multi-pass global illumination, the complete set of light bounce propagation records and the set of emissive samples for a particular rendering can be recorded to memory or disk. A user may edit the emissive samples to adjust the lighting environment, including modifying light source color and intensity and even moving and adding new emissive samples. To relight the scene, the edited emissive samples are processed through the propagation records using a streaming multiply-and-add operation amenable to high levels of parallelization, avoiding a costly re-rendering of the scene and providing a final quality result in interactive time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2015
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Brent Burley, Andrew Selle, Christian Eisenacher, Gregory Nichols
  • Patent number: 8957896
    Abstract: A method is provided for a streaming hierarchy traversal renderer with particular application for feature films and other demanding content creation using scenes of high complexity that cannot fit in memory. The renderer organizes scene geometry into a spatial hierarchy, generates directional queries to be traced in the spatial hierarchy, performs a streaming hierarchy traversal over the directional queries, and uses the results of the directional queries to shade or render the scene. The traversal performs a single pass over the directional queries for splitting into one child stream of directional queries for each child node at each scene node in the hierarchy. A prioritized traversal of the hierarchy may also be carried out using various cost-metrics for optimized parallelism. The rendering may also bounce the directional queries to provide multi-pass global illumination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 17, 2015
    Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Brent Burley, Andrew Selle, Christian Eisenacher, Gregory Nichols
  • Publication number: 20140327675
    Abstract: There is provided a method for ray-mediated illumination control. The method includes identifying a first activation region corresponding to one of an origin and a destination of a ray, where the ray is described by a ray data associated with the ray. The method further includes identifying a second activation region corresponding to the other one of the origin and the destination of the ray, interpreting an illumination rule for the ray based on at least one of the first activation region and the second activation region, and modifying an illumination in one of the first activation region and the second activation region based on the illumination rule and the ray data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 19, 2014
    Publication date: November 6, 2014
    Applicant: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Brent Burley, Christian Eisenacher, Sean Jenkins, Gregory Nichols, Andrew Selle, Charles Tappan
  • Publication number: 20140253576
    Abstract: There is provided a system and a method for ordering rays in rendered graphics for coherent shading. The method comprises recording, using the processor, intersection points for each of a plurality of directional queries in the memory, wherein each of the plurality of directional queries has one intersection point, organizing, using the processor, the intersection points in the memory into a plurality of elements, and grouping, using the processor, the intersection points in the memory by shading context. The method may further comprise shading the intersection points, wherein the shading is performed on a plurality of elements substantially concurrently. The shading context may include a volume of intersection points. In another implementation, the shading context may be one of texture ID, material ID, and element ID. Additionally, the texture ID may correspond to a mesh face ID.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 8, 2013
    Publication date: September 11, 2014
    Applicant: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventors: Gregory Nichols, Brent Burley, Andrew Selle, Christian Eisenacher