WO2009000028A1

WO2009000028A1 - Virtual 3d environments

Info

Publication number: WO2009000028A1
Application number: PCT/AU2008/000917
Authority: WO
Inventors: Danny Stefanic
Original assignee: Global Coordinate Software Limited
Priority date: 2007-06-22
Filing date: 2008-06-23
Publication date: 2008-12-31

Abstract

Portraying online content to a user within a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment. Content associated with a selected Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is obtained. A virtual 3D space is defined, on the fly if required, and associated with the URI. The virtual 3D space could be defined by metadata of the URI. The content from the URI is portrayed within the virtual 3D space. A presence of the user within the virtual 3D space can be portrayed, for example by a user avatar. The presence of other users at the URI is portrayed by other avatars within the virtual 3D space. Interaction between the user and the other users can be facilitated. The content may be offline in a local path.

Description

1

"Virtual 3D environments"

Cross-Reference to Related Applications

The present application claims priority from United States of America Provisional Patent Application No 60/945,896 filed on 22 June 2007, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.

Technical Field

The present invention relates to three dimensional (3D) representation as a virtual 3D environment of uniquely identifiable locations in computing environments, such as system paths and network locations such as Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) and websites.

Background of the Invention

An increasing number of virtual worlds are being created within which users can navigate and interact in a virtual 3D space or environment, whether a single user on a stand alone computer, or multiple users interacting within a virtual 3D environment via the internet. Such 3D environments are commonly games, whether single player games, multiplayer online games (MOGs) or massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). MOGs and MMOGs generally require that the users download scores of megabytes of content and undertake a pre-install process before connecting with other users, to avoid the need for transmission of excessive data during game play. Another example is SecondLife which is an online virtual world represented three dimensionally, developed by Linden Research, Inc. However, 3D games and virtual worlds such as that portrayed in Second Life are being built from scratch by those who choose to participate, and the content of the virtual world is separate from the content of the wider internet. That is, such virtual worlds are a single, self contained destination.

Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles or the like which has been included in the present specification is solely for the purpose of providing a context for the present invention. It is not to be taken as an admission that any or all of these matters form part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention as it existed before the priority date of each claim of this application. U2008/000917

Throughout this specification the word "comprise", or variations such as "comprises" or "comprising", will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps.

Summary of the Invention

According to a first aspect the present invention provides a software application for portraying a uniquely identifiable computing location to a user as a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the software application comprising: code for obtaining content associated with the uniquely identifiable computing location; code for defining a virtual 3D space and associating the virtual 3D space with the uniquely identifiable computing location; code for portraying content obtained from the uniquely identifiable computing location within the virtual 3D space; and code for effecting a virtual presence of the user within the virtual 3D space and for facilitating virtual navigation of the user within the virtual 3D space to effect user navigation of the content associated with the uniquely identifiable computing location.

The uniquely identifiable computing location may comprise a local file system path of a computing device upon which the client application is running. The computing device need not be networked to any other computing device. The local computer file system path could include resources or content such as files, folders, devices, collections, queries and the like. In such embodiments, control of the user avatar within the virtual 3D space may be used to effect desired computer functions and/or to effect navigation of a user throughout a computer operating system.

Additionally or alternatively, the uniquely identifiable computing location may comprise a network location identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) such as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) .

According to a second aspect the present invention provides a system for portraying online content to a user within a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the system comprising: a plurality of network sources providing online content associated with a plurality of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs); 8 000917

a server recording details of users having a presence at a given URI, and for communicating the details to client devices; a client device operable to obtain selected content associated with the given URI from at least one of said network sources, to associate the content with a virtual 3D space, to portray the obtained content within the virtual 3D space, to obtain from the server details of other users having a presence at the given URI, to portray user avatars within the virtual 3D space, and to facilitate interaction between the client device user and other users.

According to a third aspect the present invention provides a client software application for portraying online content to a user within a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the client software application comprising: code for obtaining content associated with a selected Uniform Resource Identifier (URI); code for defining a virtual 3D space and associating the virtual 3D space with the URI; code for portraying content obtained from the URI within the virtual 3D space associated with the URI; code for portraying a presence of the user within the virtual 3D space by way of a user avatar; and code for obtaining information as to the presence of other users at the URI, for portraying to the user within the virtual 3D space an avatar for each other user, and for facilitating interaction between the user and the other users.

According to a fourth aspect the present invention provides a server application for managing user interaction within a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the server application comprising: code for receiving and storing details of users having a presence at a given URI; code for transmitting the details to a client application for portrayal of user avatars within a virtual 3D space associated with the URI to facilitate interaction between the users.

According to a fifth aspect the present invention provides a method for portraying a uniquely identifiable computing location to a user as a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the method comprising: obtaining content associated with the uniquely identifiable computing location; defining a virtual 3D space and associating the virtual 3D space with the uniquely identifiable computing location; portraying content obtained from the uniquely identifiable computing location within the virtual 3D space; and effecting a virtual presence of the user within the virtual 3D space and facilitating virtual navigation of the user within the virtual 3D space to effect user navigation of the content associated with the uniquely identifiable computing location.

The present invention thus envisages creation of a virtual 3D space, and association of the virtual 3D space with a local file system path or a network location identified by a URI.

While embodiments of the present invention provide for portrayal of content associated with the URI or path within the virtual 3D space, it is notable that even when no data files or content of any type exists at the address referenced by the URI or path, the client application will nevertheless associate a virtual 3D space with the "empty" URI or path. In such instances users may, upon visiting the empty URI or path, nevertheless interact with and/or within the virtual 3D space by way of their avatars and/or by way of text chat conversation or the like. Preferably, the client application serves information regarding the presence of the associated user and avatar within the 3D space associated with the URI or path in question to the server.

The present invention thus provides for generation of a virtual 3D space to be associated with a URI or path. Thus, existing internet content can be displayed in a three dimensional manner even where the existing content possesses little or no explicit three dimensional characteristics. In cases where 3D content already exists at a URI, the present invention provides enhancement of that content by making the 3D content inhabitable with the user presence or avatar and possibly other user avatars. Preferably, the content of the URI or path is portrayed in the virtual 3D space in a manner that substantially retains the layout of content of the URI or path as would be produced by an orthodox internet browser or orthodox file browser. For example, a still image having adjacent text is preferably portrayed in the virtual 3D space mapped onto at least one face of an object, such as a rectangular prism, which is positioned within the virtual 3D space according to the layout of the original 2D page, with the text displayed adjacent to the picture object as 3D text in a manner and style reflective of the original page. Similarly, a video clip may be portrayed in the virtual 3D space as a virtual 17

television set in a position corresponding to the layout of the 2D content, with a screen of the television set showing playback of the video clip.

Moreover, the content of the URI or path may be displayed as, or as part of, a virtual 3D object within the virtual 3D space. For example, a virtual 3D space could contain a virtual table, upon the top surface of which may be rendered a 3D representation of the content associated with the URI.

The virtual 3D space may comprise a virtual indoor space having one or more rooms with a floor, walls and ceiling constraining the space. In such embodiments, user avatars may be portrayed as walking upon the floor within the virtual 3D space.

Moreover, content associated with the URI or path may be graphically rendered upon the walls and/or other surfaces defined by the virtual 3D space. The virtual 3D space may include objects such as virtual furniture, consumer items, and the like. Additionally or alternatively the virtual 3D space may comprise a virtual outdoor space not constrained by walls, floor or ceiling.

The code for effecting the virtual presence of the user within the virtual 3D space may comprise code portraying the user's presence by way of a user avatar, or alternatively may effect a first person or immersive perspective for the user, whether with or without code for effecting a virtual heads up display (HUD) or virtual head mounted display (HMD).

In accordance with the present invention graphical rendering of the virtual 3D space for display to a user is performed by the client application such that the user's own internet- capable device undertakes the processing for such graphical rendering. Moreover, definition and construction of the virtual 3D space is also performed by the client application such that, once again, the computing power of the user's own device is exploited for the necessary processing. Such features are advantageous in avoiding the need for existing internet content providers to undertake any processing associated with the virtual 3D space, and are also advantageous in relieving the processing burden placed upon the server or peer-to-peer server application(s). In turn this is advantageous in permitting a system comprising multiple client applications in accordance with the present invention to be scalable to accommodate a large number of users. T/AU2008/000917

For content in HTML format, definition of the virtual 3D space preferably comprises generation of a 3D scene graph representing all HTML and cascading style sheet (CSS) data of the content from the URI or path. Preferably, a 3D style sheet is applied to the 3D scene graph to define the virtual appearance of each tag and node of the HTML and CSS data.

To provide portability of content which is enhanced with 3D customization, the content itself preferably contains meta-data that records modifications and customizations to the virtual 3D space which is associated with that content. For example, for content in folders, such metadata continues to be available with that folder even after the folder is moved, copied or shared. Thus, when portrayed as a virtual 3D space by a client application in accordance with preferred embodiments of the invention, a decorated folder space will remain the way it was decorated even after it is moved, copied or shared, even between computers.

To provide a user with a diverse range of virtual 3D environments, the client application preferably associates a unique virtual 3D space with each new URI or path visited by the user. To this end the client application preferably has recourse to a library comprising a large number of predefined virtual 3D spaces, suitable for rendering of internet or other content at a URI or path within each such virtual 3D space. Additionally or alternatively, the client application is preferably operable to generate the virtual 3D space by defining one or more variable portions of a predefined virtual 3D space. It is to be appreciated that the variable portions could comprise any variable aspect of the virtual 3D space, for example: a variable number of virtual objects to be portrayed such as furniture, trees, etc; variable virtual fittings upon or within the virtual 3D space such as windows, doors, balustrades, flooring, landscaping, etc; variable virtual weather conditions and/or time of day; variable virtual background views such as mountains, lakes, oceans, etc; and variable virtual architecture such as construction scale, materials, layout and the like.

The client application may generate a particular attribute for each variable portion of the virtual 3D space by randomly selecting the value from a set of available values. A seed value for seeding the random selection may comprise the URI or path in question, and/or the content associated with the URI or path. Additionally or alternatively, one or more variable portions of the virtual 3D space may be selected by parsing content of the URI or path for example by keywords, determining a field of interest of the URI or path, and defining the variable portions of the virtual 3D space to conform to that field of interest. For example URI or path content devoted to antique racing cars may be portrayed by the client application within a virtual 3D space having the appearance of a car showroom which contains a virtual 3D advertisement for antique racing car collectables on an online auction site.

The client application may comprise a stand alone application, or may be a plug-in application which may be appended to a native technology ready to support 3D.

Preferably, hypermedia resources, such as images, are able to be linked in to 3D environments in a manner analogous to that in which such resources can be linked in to a normal 2D webpage whilst being hosted separately from that webpage. Such embodiments of the present invention preferably effect such linkage by way of a locator, referred to herein as a Spatial Resource Locator (SRL), which associates a reference to the location of a hypermedia resource together with the position in which the resource is to be displayed relative to the 3D environment referenced by the URI or path. In addition to linking to the resource using a URL, and associating the resource with a position within the virtual 3D environment, the SRL may also define other properties of the resource as displayed in the environment referenced by the URI or path. Such defined properties may include one or more of the resource orientation and scale relative to the virtual environment, a colour, texture, scripted behaviour of the object, a hyperlink to a different location, or any other such definable property.

Definition of the virtual 3D scene is preferably effected by reference to a portrayal of the content at the URI or path, and to a decorations list comprising a list of Spatial

Resource Locators (SRLs). The decorations list is preferably hierarchical such that the hypermedia resources referenced by the SRLs are able to be nested, and such that when a parent object is moved or reoriented within the environment, the children move with that parent. Such embodiments thus enable a 3D virtual world associated with a URI or a path to act as a container or bearer of media objects, as can one or more of the media objects themselves. Moreover, in preferred such embodiments a decorations list may contain a reference to another decorations list at any point within the defined hierarchy, in which case the objects referenced within are included in the scene according to the position of the second decorations list within the first decorations list. 00917

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Existing internet content at many URLs includes hyperlinks to other URLs. Embodiments of the present invention preferably portray such hyperlinks in a manner permitting actuation of the hyperlink by way of avatar action within the virtual 3D space. For example, the client application may portray a hyperlink as a clickable 3D object, together with identification of the link label, and in such cases actuation of the hyperlink may be effected by a user clicking the 3D object or moving sufficiently close to it. The client application may give the user the option of whether to launch a destination URL with an orthodox two dimensional browser or, in the case of paths, a file browser, as a new virtual 3D space, or as an extension of the existing virtual 3D space within which the user has already been navigating. The latter option thus envisages creation of an extended virtual 3D space comprising a combination of URIs and/or paths chosen by the user's navigation. Preferably, the client application is operable to navigate via 3D links which specify not only a destination URI or path but also specify a virtual three dimensional location and orientation to which a user will be delivered when actuating the 3D link.

In preferred embodiments of the present invention, the client application further comprises functions to enable the adding, removing, creating and editing of content in a virtual 3D space, whether such content is orthodox 2D content or is adapted explicitly for portrayal in the virtual 3D space. Preferred such embodiments provide a graphical user interface editing display, which may, for example, permit drag and drop inclusion of 3D content from other URIs, paths or libraries, changes to virtual layout, and orientation, and the like without the need for the user to do any coding.

In some embodiments of the invention the virtual 3D space may comprise a virtual shop of a vendor associated with the URI. Purchase of goods may be effected by a single action in the virtual environment, in a manner analogous to the "one click" system set out in Amazon's United States Patent No 5,960,411. The single action could for example comprise a user causing their avatar to place a virtual representation of the product in a virtual bag carried by the avatar.

Further embodiments of the invention envisage commoditisation of virtual 3D objects. In such embodiments, a webpage creator may be rewarded for including, within the virtual 3D space of their webpage, a virtual 3D object of a second party. For example the virtual 3D object may take the virtual form of a product for sale by the second party and may also constitute a link enabling visitors to the virtual 3D space to hyperlink to the webpage or virtual 3D space of the second party in order to further investigate and purchase the product. Additionally or alternatively the virtual 3D object may function as a vending machine within the virtual 3D space, permitting sale of products by the second party to visitors. The virtual 3D object may comprise a live link to content controlled by the second party such that the virtual 3D object may be updated as new models or product lines are introduced and displayed within the virtual 3D space without requiring the virtual 3D space owner to update the virtual object or content of the webpage. The virtual 3D object may additionally or alternatively effect traffic generation or affiliate tracking for the second party, in return for which the virtual 3D space owner may be rewarded. Similarly, advertising may be positioned within and/or upon the virtual 3D space. Such advertising is preferably made contextually relevant to the webpage content, for example by referring to keywords, metadata or the like.

Preferably, the server is responsible for collecting and serving metadata but little or no content. Such metadata could comprise details of the location of files which define aspects of the virtual 3D space associated with each of a multiplicity of URIs and/or paths. That is, the server need not store the files themselves, but need merely be able to direct client applications to the file required. The files may define aspects of the virtual

3D space including one or more of: the virtual 3D environment; the manner in which content is to be portrayed within the virtual 3D space; the location, orientation, shape and/or configuration of virtual objects which are to be included within the virtual 3D space; and the location, orientation, motion, and appearance of all user avatars currently present within the virtual 3D space. The server thus provides an element of persistence to the users' experience of the virtual 3D space, by providing a means by which each of the elements of the virtual 3D space that have been embedded from remote locations can be recorded and referenced next time the user enters the virtual 3D space.

The server and server application may comprise a single device providing the desired information to users upon request. Alternatively, the server and server application may be provided by a distributed peer-to-peer arrangement in which the server functionality is distributed among and effected by a multiplicity of networked devices each responsible for a portion of the server tasks. Multiple client applications in accordance with the present invention may be configured to provide such distributed functionality. 08 000917

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Brief Description of the Drawings

An example of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 illustrates a system in accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 2 illustrates 2D content as authored by a webpage owner and displayed by an orthodox 2D browser;

Figure 3 illustrates a virtual 3D space, defined by the webpage URL, that will contain the webpage content; Figure 4 illustrates the manner in which the 2D content of Figure 2 is rendered into the virtual 3D space of Figure 3;

Figure 5 a illustrates 3D-enhanced content as portrayed by an orthodox 2D browser;

Figure 5b illustrates the 3D-enhanced content of Figure 5 a as rendered into a virtual 3D space by a client application in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

Figure 6 illustrates the 3D object editing function of the client application;

Figure 7 illustrates volumetric and positional 3D placeholders located within a virtual 3D space; Figure 8 illustrates entry into a virtual 3D space via a 3D bookmark;

Figure 9 illustrates the system structure of a peer to peer server application; and

Figure 10 illustrates the manner in which virtual 3D objects may be included in a virtual 3D space and copied to another virtual 3D space while being linked back to the original source.

Description of the Preferred Embodiments

Some portions of the detailed descriptions which follow are presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the means used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has T/AU2008/000917

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proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like.

It should be bome in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussion, it is to be appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizing terms such as "processing", "computing", "calculating", "determining", "displaying" or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.

The present invention also relates to apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and each coupled to a computer system bus.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purpose systems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. The required structure for a variety of these systems will appear from the description below. In addition, the present invention is not described with reference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the invention as described herein.

A machine-readable medium includes any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a 2008/000917

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machine-readable medium includes read only memory ("ROM"); random access memory ("RAM"); magnetic disk storage media; optical storage media; flash memory devices; electrical, optical, acoustical or other form of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals, etc.); etc.

Figure 1 illustrates a system 100 in accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention. System 100 comprises a network 110, in this case being the Internet. A plurality of user devices 120a to 12On are connected to the internet 110, whether by copper wire, optic fibre, wireless connection or otherwise. A plurality of network sources 130a to 130n provide online content, associated with and located by reference to Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). The network sources 130 may comprise all sources of content already existing upon the Internet. One or more of user devices 120 may also act as network sources providing online content.

In accordance with the present invention there is further provided a server 140. Among other functions, server 140 is adapted to records details of which users are currently visiting each URI, so as to facilitate interaction between multiple simultaneous visitors to a single URI.

In the embodiment illustrated, a client application in accordance with the invention is active on one of the user devices, device 120a. The client application enables a user of device 120a to navigate the internet and retrieve content from the content sources 130. Upon accessing a URI, the client application generates a virtual 3D space and associates the virtual 3D space with that URI. Because the virtual 3D space is generated by the client application, no significant additional bandwidth usage is required in portraying the content in a virtual 3D space, beyond that involved in retrieving the content which already exists on the content sources 130. Thus, the client application permits existing internet content to be rendered into a virtual 3D space. Construction of the virtual 3D space can also include 3D style sheets served from other internet servers.

Figure 2 illustrates 2D content as authored by a webpage editor and displayed by an orthodox 2D browser having navigational toolbars 200. The 2D content could include any type of internet content, such as an author's greeting and interests section 210, one or more photographs 220, a links section 230 linking to friends' pages, advertising content 240, videos, and the like. When the client application of the present embodiment is used to browse the same content, it generates a virtual 3D space 300, illustrated in Figure 3, to be associated with the content 210, 220, 230.

The virtual 3D space 300 may have an associated 3D stylesheet and or decorations which can be selected from a library of pre-existing templates or from other internet servers. Alternatively the virtual 3D space 300 may be partially or entirely generated anew substantially at the time of visiting website and content 210,...,240. Characteristics of the virtual 3D space are preferably generated in a unique manner so as to maintain variety and user interest as each new virtual 3D space generated for each website visited by the user. For example, the URI itself may be used as seed data for a pseudo random process involved in generation of one or more characteristics of the virtual 3D space, and/or some or all of the content 210, ... , 240 may be used as seed data in such a process. Additionally or alternatively, contextual mapping of the virtual 3D space to the content of the page may influence the form of the virtual 3D space, such that content relating to outdoor topics lead to generation of a virtual outdoor 3D space for that content. Similarly, a quantity or volume of content may influence a virtual size or volume of the associated virtual 3D space generated. The virtual 3D space 300 in this instance is a virtual indoor space including virtual walls, floor and ceiling, a virtual door 310, and a virtual wall mounted flat screen television 320.

Figure 4 illustrates the manner in which the content 210, ... , 240 is graphically rendered into the virtual 3D space 300 by the client application for display to the user. The client application matches the type of content to appropriate placeholders within the virtual 3D space, such that the video advertising content 240 is displayed as if being played back by the virtual television 320. Similarly, a match is made for the photograph 220 which is displayed as if hung in a picture frame 330, and the author's greeting and interests section is displayed closest to the perspective of the user upon first entering the virtual 3D space 300.

The links section 230 is graphically rendered upon virtual door 310 as a means to exit the virtual space 300. Each link provided within the content 230 may be represented in the virtual 3D space in any manner enabling actuation of the link. For example, each link may be represented as a 3D object 315 that can be clicked on by the user, or, alternatively, an exit door 310 which can be actuated by a user avatar being navigated through the door. Similarly, links could be portrayed as a teleport, a 'live' region of virtual ground, an enterable cloud, a black hole, or any other such device. Depending on systems settings, actuation of a link may launch a 2D browsing environment or may completely remove the previous virtual 3D space and present a wholly new virtual 3D space associated with the new webpage being linked to, with a back-door to walk to the previous virtual 3D space. Numerous such virtual 3D spaces are thereby connected by these links so as to form a single massive inter-connected virtual world. The client application further provides a virtual world functionality in which a second virtual 3D space associated with the link is coherently joined with the virtual 3D space from which the user is linking, such that a virtual world comprising both virtual spaces is formed, enabling the user to navigate their avatar within the virtual world and between the two virtual 3D spaces. Numerous such virtual 3D spaces may be thus connected so as to form the portions of the internet navigated by the user into a single massive interconnected virtual world.

Moreover, the client application represents the user's presence within the virtual space 300 by implementing a user avatar 340. The avatar could be a 3D character as shown, but could also be a video stream, an audio representation, a GPS marker, or anything representing the essence of a user. The user may control movement of their avatar within the virtual space 300, for example to change perspective, to walk around, to more closely inspect the content 210, ... , 240, and/or to exit the virtual space 300 and to leave the website by exiting through door 310.

Figure 4 further illustrates the presence of another user's avatar 350 within the virtual space 300. In this embodiment, knowledge of the simultaneous presence of another user is obtained by the client application by communicating with the server 140, which maintains a record of which user currently has a presence at the URI with which the content 210, ..., 240 is associated. Either user may instigate interaction with the other, whether by way of text chat or virtual physical interaction of avatars 340 and 350 such as shaking hands. Note that a user could be a human, an embodiment of a computer program as a user, such as an artificial intelligence, a bot or a chatbot.

Moreover, the client application is operable to enable browsing of content enhanced with 3D customizations. That is, where content includes data and/or metadata which defines a virtual 3D space and/or the manner in which the content is to be portrayed within the virtual 3D space, the client application is operable to obtain such data and graphically render the virtual 3D space in the manner defined by the 3D customizations. The data and/or metadata are able to be associated with the content in a variety of ways. They may, for example, reside on a server, be embedded within HTML or be provided within a stand-alone file resident within a folder in the user's file system.

Where internet content is enhanced with 3D customizations in accordance with the present invention, an indication to this effect is included within the content so that visitors to the webpage having orthodox browsers are notified that the content is 3D enhanced. The indication is preferably prominent, but it could be as subtle as an invisible marker in the page like a html <! — comment~> tag, for example. In the present embodiment, the indication includes a link enabling each visitor, say user 120b, to obtain their own instance of the client application. In this embodiment the user 120b is, if they do not already have the client application installed, directed to the server 140, or another server, which sends the necessary client application files. The download of the client application upon device 120b is preferably a single process which, upon conclusion, runs the client application to enable the user 120b to navigate the webpage as a virtual 3D space. Consequently, the user enters a 3D navigation browser seamlessly whether or not they already had the browser downloaded.

In turn, upon download of the client application, the user is further able to use the client application to customise the virtual 3D space associated with their webpage. For example, Figure 5a illustrates authored content 510, ... , 540 which is 3D enhanced by metadata, as indicated by indicia 550, when viewed by an orthodox 2D browser. The metadata accompanying the content 510, ... , 540 defines a customized virtual 3D space as defined and/or selected by the author of the content, with the virtual 3D space 500 being illustrated in Figure 5b. The indicia 550 includes a link to server 140, or another server, which initiates download and execution of a client application to the requesting user device 120 to enable that device to undertake virtual 3D browsing.

Figure 5b further illustrates the manner in which the 3D enhanced content 510, ... , 540 is graphically rendered and displayed within the virtual 3D space 500 when viewed by the client application of the present embodiment. The user avatar 550 is placed within the virtual outdoor scene defined by the metadata accompanying the content 510 ...

540. Such metadata may be embedded within the document directly or hosted elsewhere and referenced by a metadata link within the document. Such a link may point to 3D customizations to be displayed. The virtual outdoor scene includes virtual placeholders 560 appropriate for placement of content 510 ... 540. Movement of the 00917

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avatar 550 around the virtual 3D space 500 can be caused by the user, in response to which the client application will render the content and virtual 3D space from a changing perspective, being the perspective as viewed by the user avatar 550. Moreover, decorative elements may be included within the virtual space 500 such as a virtual tree 570, virtual birds 572, and a virtual sun 574, all of which may themselves be animated. For example, based on the time and date clock of a server 120, the virtual tree 570 may be displayed without leaves for winter months, the virtual sun 574 may rise and set, and the virtual birds 572 may be displayed as roosting and/or migrating.

In the example of Figure 5, the content 510 ... 540 comprises photographic works which are available for purchase. The virtual 3D space 500 thus further includes a checkout register 580 which may be actuated by the user avatar to initiate a purchase transaction if desired.

The client application permits the user to define the layout and contents of the virtual 3D space associated with their website. Such editing is provided in a graphical user interface, as illustrated in Figure 6, which enables a range of actions. 3D objects 620 may be included into a virtual 3D space by dragging and dropping a link to the object from a remote location into the space as depicted by the client application. Similarly, hypermedia resources may be included into a virtual 3D space by dragging and dropping a link to the resource from a remote location into the space as depicted by the client application. For example a user may drag an image from a URL into the space as depicted by the client application, and drop the image link onto a given 3D object within the space and so doing may change the appearance of the 3D object such that the object is textured with the image. A keyboard may be used to cut, copy, paste and move elements into the virtual 3D space. Also, objects may be placed into a virtual 3D space using a variety of means. By selecting one of the on screen icons 610, objects can be clicked and dragged in order to change their position, orientation or scale. Dimensions and/or layout of elements or boundaries of the virtual 3D space may also be altered via any of these methods. Thus, existing virtual objects within the virtual space may be embedded, moved, reoriented, and resized and parameters defined without the necessity of the user writing code.

By way of example, a virtual 3D space may have associated therewith a decorations list of SRLs, one of which links to a file defining a virtual coffee table. The virtual coffee table is visible in the 3D virtual world. On top of the coffee table may be portrayed a virtual fruit bowl. The Decorations List shows the fruit bowl SRL nested within the coffee table SRL. The fruit bowl is therefore "contained" by the coffee table, with the effect that as the user moves the coffee table around within the virtual 3D space the fruit bowl stays on top of it, while other objects within the scene do not move. A second decorations list may be nested within the first decorations list. In this example the second decorations list may comprise details of virtual fruit within the virtual fruit bowl, such that movement of the bowl upon the table, and/or movement of the table within the virtual 3D space, leads to the virtual fruit being borne by the fruit bowl and thus being moved at the same time. This concept of containment extends naturally to folders and content within folders on a local file system. Objects representing folders and child sub-folders preferably inherit their containment structure from the structure of the actual folders. Changes to folder objects in a virtual 3D environment can also be reflected in the folder structure and vice versa.

Further, the user may use the editing function to import paths or URIs pointing to content elsewhere on the internet or on their own computer / LAN which they wish to portray within their virtual 3D space. Such paths or URIs could for example lead to a text file, image file, video file, an audio file or stream, a hypermedia element (flash, Java, image, audio or the like), a 3D object, a 3D environment, a 3D gadget/widget , 3D style sheet element(s), representations of one or more tags/nodes, Google Earth 4 format .kmz files, and/or tags/markup which can then be parsed for relevant paths or URIs to content such as the above. Images can be dropped into the scene to change the surface texture of objects.

As an element of a virtual 3D space is edited the changes are saved by the server application such that the changes will persist and be viewable by any user accessing the virtual 3D space.

In the client application, tags or markup (such as XML or HTML) are translated into a 3D representation from the information in the DOM (document object model). HTML is often used in conjunction with CSS (cascading style sheets) to separate data from presentation. The present invention expands on this to represent HTML and CSS data in a DOM in an analogous manner to orthodox 2D browsers. This combined HTML &

CSS is converted at the time of rendering into a 3D definition where all information is represented in a 3D scene graph. This 3D scene graph is independent of the 3D representation and only holds the HTML & CSS data. This 3D scene graph then has a 00917

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3D style sheet applied to it which details how every data element should appear in the virtual environment. Alternative embodiments may treat the HTML and CSS as a 3D scene graph in an alternative manner.

The 3D style sheet used can contain representations for all or some tags, with a default fallback occurring to represent tags that are not represented. These representations are provided as a file similar to CSS files, which can similarly be accessed by a path or URI. Notably, this differs from data visualization in that every tag is represented, such that this approach does not involve a subset of information being looked at in order to determine higher level aggregate information or knowledge. Rather, the present invention provides a complete representation of the page in 3D. Given the automatic nature of this representation of 2D, all content within the 3D scene is a real-time representation of the 2D.

The 3D metadata of a website may further comprise a placeholder for 3D advertising within the virtual 3D space, as illustrated in Figure 7. Preferably, the client application provides a simple way to insert such placeholders, such as drag and drop. The website author is preferably rewarded for providing advertisement placeholders 710, ... , 720 within their virtual 3D space. In turn, the advertising space provided by the placeholder is preferably allocated to an appropriate advertisement, an example being a context-specific advertisement relevant to the content of the 3D or 2D webpage, and can also be relevant to the content of the additional contents of the virtual 3D space. Preferably, the server 140 manages allocation of advertisements to placeholders. The advertisement and/or placeholder may be actuated by avatar interaction in order to direct the user to a website associated with the advertised goods and/or services. The placeholder may be of indeterminate shape and merely specify a location such that shape specific advertisements (for example, for cars), may be allocated to the placeholder.

Such placeholders, whether for advertising or other purposes, may specify a particular spatial volume 710 which acts to constrain the object and restrict its encroachment into the rest of the virtual 3D space such that the object is either resized to fit, kept at its original size but clipped by the boundaries of the placeholder object or not displayed if it is out of the bounds set by the placeholder. The placeholder container object may have a visible virtual 3D frame such as wooden beams forming a box, or take the appearance of a shiny bubble, but it can also be invisible 720. The placeholder need not be uniform or fixed in shape. Such placeholders prevent arbitrary 3D content delivered from other websites from unduly interfering with the design of the current 3D environment by constraining the placeholder content within the placeholder space, and preserving other design and spatial aspects of the virtual 3D environment.

As illustrated in Figure 8, the client application is further operable to process a link or bookmark including not only a URI or path but also position, orientation, and scale information, such that, upon entry to the virtual 3D space, the user is presented with a perspective as defined by the link or bookmark. In this manner the user can be transported not only to a particular virtual world, but also to a specified point of view in the virtual world.

As illustrated in Figure 9, client applications 120a ... 12On represent a distributed peer- to-peer arrangement in which the server functionality is distributed among and effected by a multiplicity of networked devices connected via the internet 110. Each client application 120 is thus made responsible for a portion of the server tasks, allowing the system of Figure 9 to be implemented without any dedicated server hardware for such tasks.

The present invention further provides for website authors to generate traffic to their websites by giving away promotional virtual 3D objects. As illustrated in Figure 10, this may be done by providing a link 1020 to such objects from a website 1010, whereby the objects may be dragged and dropped into a virtual 3D space as a 3D object 1030. Visitors to a 3D enhanced site containing the object may take a copy of the object 1040 to place in their own virtual 3D space online or on their computer. The 3D objects can contain a hyperlink back to the original website. Such objects may be consumer items to improve product recognition and/or carry advertisements or advertisement placeholders as discussed above. Alternatively such objects and implementing code may be made available for sale.

Where 3D objects are distributed in such a manner, the implementing code can further provide metrics on display and interaction by feeding back information on any trigger information including but not limited to hits, clicks, visibility %, display time, pixel hours, proximity, level of interest, and the like. It will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art that numerous variations and/or modifications may be made to the invention as shown in the specific embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as broadly described. For example while the described embodiments relate to the internet online environment having uniquely identifiable computing locations identified by URIs, it is to be appreciated that the present invention may be applied analogously in offline environments, such as a local file system having uniquely identifiable computing locations identified by local file system paths and associating a virtual 3D space with each such path, and/or an intranet, or the like. Most preferably, the client application is operable to browse Internet, intranet and local path content in the manner described and effect seamless navigation between such types of content. The present embodiments are, therefore, to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive.

Claims

1721CLAIMS:

1. A client software application for portraying online content to a user within a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the client software application comprising: code for obtaining content associated with a selected Uniform Resource Identifier (URI); code for defining a virtual 3D space and associating the virtual 3D space with the URI; code for portraying content obtained from the URI within the virtual 3D space associated with the URI; code for portraying a presence of the user within the virtual 3D space by way of a user avatar; and code for obtaining information as to the presence of other users at the URI, for portraying to the user within the virtual 3D space an avatar for each other user, and for facilitating interaction between the user and the other users.

2. The client software application of claim 1, further comprising code for serving information regarding the presence of the associated user and avatar within the 3D space associated with the URI or path in question to a server managing user interaction within the virtual 3D space.

3. The client software application of claim 1 or claim 2, further comprising code for portraying content of the URI or path in the virtual 3D space in a manner that substantially retains the layout of content of the URI or path as would be produced by two dimensional portrayal.

4. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 3, further comprising code for portraying the content of the URI or path as, or as part of, a virtual 3D object within the virtual 3D space.

5. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising code for portraying the virtual 3D space as a virtual indoor space having one or more rooms with a floor, walls and ceiling constraining the space.

6. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising code for portraying the virtual 3D space as a virtual outdoor space not constrained by walls, floor or ceiling.

7. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 6, further comprising code for portraying the virtual presence of the user within the virtual 3D space by way of a user avatar.

8. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 7, further comprising code for portraying the virtual presence of the user within the virtual 3D space by a first person or immersive perspective for the user.

9. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 8, further comprising code for displaying a virtual heads up display (HUD) or virtual head mounted display

(HMD).

10. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 9, further comprising code for representing HTML and cascading style sheet (CSS) data of the content from the URI or path by generating a 3D scene graph.

11. The client software application of claim 10, further comprising code for applying a 3D style sheet to the 3D scene graph to define the virtual appearance of each tag and node of the HTML and CSS data.

12. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 11, further comprising code for portraying customizations of the virtual 3D space defined in meta-data associated with the URI or path.

13. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 12, further comprising code for associating a unique virtual 3D space with each new URI or path accessed by the user.

14. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 14, further comprising code for accessing a library comprising a large number of predefined virtual 3D spaces, suitable for rendering of internet or other content at a URI or path within each such virtual 3D space.

15. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 15, further comprising code for defining one or more variable portions of a pre-defined virtual 3D space.

16. The client software application of claim 15, further comprising code for generating a particular attribute for a variable portion of the virtual 3D space by randomly selecting the attribute from a set of available attributes.

17. The client software application of claim 15, further comprising code for seeding the random selection with a seed value comprising at least one of the URI or path in question, and the content associated with the URI or path.

18. The client software application of claim 15, further comprising code for generating a particular attribute for a variable portion of the virtual 3D space by parsing content of the URI or path, determining a field of interest of the URI or path, and defining the variable portions of the virtual 3D space to conform to that field of interest. 17

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19. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 18 further comprising code for identifying a spatial resource locator (SRL) associated with the content, code for obtaining a separately hosted hypermedia resource referenced by the SRL, and code for displaying the hypermedia resource with the 3D space.

20. The client software application of claim 19 further comprising code for displaying the hypermedia resource in accordance with defined properties contained within the SRL.

21. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 20 further comprising code for portraying hyperlinks in a manner permitting actuation of the hyperlink by way of avatar action within the virtual 3D space.

22. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 21 further comprising code for, upon actuation of a hyperlink identifying a different URI or path and identifying a virtual three dimensional location and orientation within a 3D virtual space associated with a URI or path, delivering a user avatar to the identified three dimensional location and orientation of the different URI.

23. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 22 further comprising code to enable the adding, removing, creating and editing of content in a virtual 3D space with which the user is associated.

24. The client software application of claim 23 further comprising code for enabling the user to add a virtual 3D object of a second party to the user's virtual 3D space.

25. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 24 further comprising code for effecting purchase of goods or services from a virtual 3D space comprising a virtual shop of a vendor.

26. The client software application of any one of claims 1 to 25 further comprising code for cooperating with other networked client software applications to effect a distributed server for managing user interaction within the virtual 3D space.

27. A system for portraying online content to a user within a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the system comprising: a plurality of network sources providing online content associated with a plurality of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs); a server recording details of users having a presence at a given URI₅ and for communicating the details to client devices; a client device operable to obtain, selected content associated with the given URI from at least one of said network sources, to associate the content with a virtual 3D space, to portray the obtained content within the virtual 3D space, to obtain from the server details of other users having a presence at the given URI, to portray user avatars within the virtual 3D space, and to facilitate interaction between the client device user and other users.

28. A server application for managing user interaction within a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the server application comprising: code for receiving and storing details of users having a presence at a given URI; code for transmitting the details to a client application for portrayal of user avatars within a virtual 3D space associated with the URI to facilitate interaction between the users.

29. The server application of claim 28 wherein the details comprise metadata including the location of files which define aspects of the virtual 3D space associated with each of a multiplicity of URIs and/or paths.

30. The server application of claim 28 or claim 29 when configured to reside on a single networked computing device providing the desired information to users upon request.

31. The server application of claim 28 or claim 29 when configured to be provided by a distributed peer-to-peer arrangement in which the server functionality is distributed among and effected by a multiplicity of networked devices each responsible for a portion of the server tasks.

32. A software application for portraying a uniquely identifiable computing location to a user as a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the software application comprising: code for obtaining content associated with the uniquely identifiable computing location; code for defining a virtual 3D space and associating the virtual 3D space with the uniquely identifiable computing location; code for portraying content obtained from the uniquely identifiable computing location within the virtual 3D space; and code for effecting a virtual presence of the user within the virtual 3D space and for facilitating virtual navigation of the user within the virtual 3D space to effect user navigation of the content associated with the uniquely identifiable computing location.

33. The software application of claim 32 wherein the uniquely identifiable computing location comprises a local file system path of a computing device by which the application is to be executed.

34. A method for portraying a uniquely identifiable computing location to a user as a virtual three dimensional (3D) environment, the method comprising: obtaining content associated with the uniquely identifiable computing location; defining a virtual 3D space and associating the virtual 3D space with the uniquely identifiable computing location; portraying content obtained from the uniquely identifiable computing location within the virtual 3D space; and effecting a virtual presence of the user within the virtual 3D space and facilitating virtual navigation of the user within the virtual 3D space to effect user navigation of the content associated with the uniquely identifiable computing location.