Safety for wearable virtual reality devices via object detection and tracking

A non-transitory computer readable medium impressed with instructions for detecting an imminent collision with a physical object during a virtual reality experience by a user wearing a head mounted virtual reality device (HMVRD) including a display that can block the user's ability to actually and digitally view the actual real world therethrough, the instructions when executed by one or more processors cause the processors to perform operations comprising:

• using at least one forward facing camera mounted to the HMVRD to capture a sequence of images of a real world environment ahead of a user wearing the HMVRD;
• wherein wearing the HMVRD can block the ability of the user to actually and digitally view the actual real world through the display of the HMVRD;
• using, by the HMVRD, features in some images of the sequence of images to track proximity of at least one physical object that is blocked, by the display of the HMVRD, from being actually viewed and digitally viewed by the user, such that there is no virtual representation of the at least one physical object, the at least one physical object being an inanimate object that is not another user of another HMVRD;
• correlating, by the HMVRD, multiple images to detect relative motion of the at least one physical object blocked, by the display of the HMVRD, from being actually viewed and digitally viewed by the user as the user approaches;
• detecting that the user is approaching the at least one physical object within a proximity threshold of the at least one physical object in dependence on (i) the tracked proximity of the at least one physical object and (ii) the detected relative motion of the at least one physical object;
• and
• responsive to detecting that the user is approaching the at least one physical object within the proximity threshold, automatically generating an alert to be injected into a virtual reality experience of the user without (i) generating data for display that represents the at least one physical object in a virtual environment of the HMVRD and (ii) generating data for display that is an adjusted replacement for the at least one physical object in the virtual environment of the HMVRD.

A system, including:

• a head mounted virtual reality device (HMVRD) including a display that can block a user's ability to actually and digitally view the actual real world therethrough;
• at least one forward facing camera mounted to the HMVRD that captures a sequence of images of a real world environment ahead of the user wearing the HMVRD;
• and
• a computer readable medium including instructions for detecting an imminent collision with a physical object during a virtual reality experience by the user wearing the HMVRD that can block the user's ability to actually and virtually view the actual real world therethrough, the instructions when executed by one or more processors cause the processors to perform operations comprising:
• using at least one forward facing camera mounted to the HMVRD to capture a sequence of images of a real world environment ahead of the user wearing the HMVRD;
• wherein wearing the HMVRD can block the ability of the user to actually and digitally view the actual real world through the display of the HMVRD;
• using, by the HMVRD, features in some images of the sequence of images to track proximity of at least one physical object that is blocked, by the display of the HMVRD, from being actually viewed and digitally viewed by the user, such that there is no virtual representation of the at least one physical object, the at least one physical object being an inanimate object that is not another user of another HMVRD;
• correlating, by the HMVRD, multiple images to detect relative motion of the at least one physical object blocked, by the display of the HMVRD, from being actually viewed and digitally viewed by the user as the user approaches;
• detecting that the user is approaching the at least one physical object within a proximity threshold of the at least one physical object in dependence on (i) the tracked proximity of the at least one physical object and (ii) the detected relative motion of the at least one physical object;
• and
• responsive to detecting that the user is approaching the at least one physical object within the proximity threshold, automatically generating an alert to be injected into a virtual reality experience of the user without (i) generating data for display that represents the at least one physical object in a virtual environment of the HMVRD and (ii) generating data for display that is an adjusted replacement for the at least one physical object in the virtual environment of the HMVRD.