Patent Issued for Virtual environment generation for collaborative building assessment (USPTO 11758090): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2023 OCT 04 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11758090, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Ho, An (Phoenix, AZ, US), King, Vicki (Bloomington, IL, US), Little, Rebecca A. (Mesa, AZ, US), Nussbaum, Bryan R. (Bloomington, IL, US), Stockweather, Deanna L. (Normal, IL, US), Summers, Nathan C. (Mesa, AZ, US).

This patent was filed on November 3, 2020 and was published online on September 12, 2023.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Virtual reality (VR) systems have been developed that allow users to view and interact with components of virtual environments. These virtual environments may be either created as fictional environments or digitalized representations of physical environments. For example, existing processes may be used to generate virtual environments representing the interior of a famous building or a local area of significance for virtual sight-seeing and tours, such as virtual environments representing the United States Capitol building and grounds. Additionally, multiple-user VR systems exist, but the collaboration capabilities of such systems are inadequate for many purposes-particularly for collaboration and training relating to assessment of physical sites.

“Various projects across an array of industries require collaborative interaction between individuals on a physical site, such that some of the individuals may need to travel to the physical site. Travel continues to be necessary in many situations because telephony and fixed-point digital image analysis (e.g., video conferences) do not allow the individuals to move about the physical site to address particular issues or concerns as they arise. Additionally, wireless communication is often insufficient or unreliable at such sites. Travel is time-consuming, inconvenient, and costly. In some situations, experts may be nearly constantly travelling to various sites to collaborate with local individuals. For example, expert trainers such as business underwriting specialists frequently travel to meet with local trainees such as insurance agents to provide training and expert analysis of local sites, such as commercial properties in a town. Considerable improvements in time and cost efficiency could be achieved if such individuals could collaborate remotely, but existing systems are ineffective in facilitating such collaboration.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present application discloses methods, systems, and computer-readable media storing instructions to facilitate virtual collaboration between remote users. As described herein, the disclosed aspects improve existing VR systems by improving collaborative capabilities of virtual environments, thereby enabling remote users to interact effectively with each other during virtual collaboration sessions. Various aspects are summarized below and described in further detail herein.

“The present application discloses methods, systems, and computer-readable media storing instructions for virtual collaboration between a plurality of users. This may include establishing a first communication connection via a communication network with a first virtual environment interface device associated with a first user of the plurality of users; establishing a second communication connection via the communication network with a second virtual environment interface device associated with a second user of the plurality of users; initiating a virtual collaboration session with the first user and the second user by (i) establishing a communication channel between the first user and the second user via the first and second communication connections for bidirectional communication (which may be a voice communication channel), (ii) providing a virtual environment representing a physical location including a building to the first and second virtual environment interface devices for presentation to the first and second users, and (iii) causing a plurality of data tools to be presented to at least the first user within the virtual environment; routing real-time communication data between the first user and the second user via the communication channel during the virtual collaboration session; receiving user interaction data from the first user, wherein the user interaction data indicates a portion of the building; generating a virtual overlay within the virtual environment based upon the user interaction data; updating the virtual environment to include the virtual overlay; and/or synchronizing the virtual environment presented to the first and second users, including causing the virtual overlay to be presented to the second user via the second virtual environment interface device.

“The first user may be a trainer, and the second user may be a trainee. In some such embodiments, the plurality of data tools presented to the trainer may include trainer-exclusive data tools. Such trainer-exclusive data tools may include a view synchronization tool to force a viewing perspective of the trainee within the virtual environment to match a viewing perspective of the trainer within the virtual environment.

“In some embodiments, the virtual overlay may be associated with a location within the virtual environment corresponding to the portion of the building. In embodiments in which the user interaction data indicates a user annotation regarding an aspect of the portion of the building, the virtual overlay may include a visual representation of the user annotation.

“In further embodiments, the methods, systems, and computer-readable media storing instructions for virtual collaboration between a plurality of users may include: receiving a plurality of images of the physical location including the building, wherein the plurality of images show the building from a plurality of viewing perspectives; generating a representation of the physical location including the building by photogrammetric analysis of the plurality of images; and/or storing the representation of the physical location including the building. In such embodiments, providing the virtual environment to the first and second virtual environment interface devices may include accessing the representation of the physical location from the computer memory and sending the representation of the physical location to the first and second virtual environment interface devices. Such embodiments may further include capturing the plurality of images of the physical location including the building by a mobile computing device associated with the second user.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method comprising: initiating, by one or more processors, a virtual collaboration session between a first device and a second device by: establishing, a first communication connection between the one or more processors and the first device, establishing, a second communication connection, separate from the first communication connection, between the one or more processors and the second device, causing a virtual environment to be presented by the first device and by the second device, the virtual environment representing a physical location, and causing a view synchronization tool to be presented, by at least the first device, within the virtual environment; receiving, by the one or more processors and from the first device, an input via the view synchronization tool, the input indicative of a first viewing perspective of the physical location, within the virtual environment, as illustrated by the first device; causing, by the one or more processors and based at least in part on the input, the second device to illustrate the physical location, within the virtual environment, from a second viewing perspective matching the first viewing perspective; receiving, by the one or more processors and from the first device, a data capture command indicative of a request for additional information associated with the physical location represented in the virtual environment; and capturing, by the one or more processors and based at least in part on the data capture command, the additional information within the virtual environment.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising establishing, via a third communication connection, a voice communication channel between the first device and the second device.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the physical location includes a portion of a building, the method further comprising: receiving, by the one or more processors and from the first device or the second device, a user annotation associated with an aspect of the portion of the building; generating, by the one or more processors, a virtual overlay within the virtual environment that includes a visual representation of the user annotation; and causing, by the one or more processors, the virtual overlay to be presented by the first device and the second device.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, at the one or more processors, a plurality of images of the physical location, wherein the plurality of images illustrates the physical location from a plurality of viewing perspectives; generating, by the one or more processors, a representation of the physical location by photogrammetric analysis of the plurality of images; and storing, in a computer memory, the representation of the physical location, wherein causing the virtual environment to be presented by the first device and by the second device includes: accessing the representation of the physical location from the computer memory, and sending the representation of the physical location to the first device and the second device.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, further comprising capturing, by a mobile computing device, the plurality of images of the physical location.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, at the one or more processors, a user selection of a first overlay within the virtual environment, wherein the first overlay is associated with the physical location; accessing, by the one or more processors, data associated with the user selection; generating, by the one or more processors, a second overlay within the virtual environment based upon the data; updating, by the one or more processors, the virtual environment to include the second overlay; and synchronizing, by the one or more processors, the virtual environment presented by the first device and by the second device, wherein synchronizing the virtual environment includes causing the second overlay to be presented by the first device and by the second device.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein accessing the data includes retrieving external data from a database, the external data comprising at least one of property zoning data, property tax assessments, property environmental reports, property ownership records, or insurance policy records.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: causing, by the one or more processors, the virtual environment to be presented by a third device, wherein: a first user of the first device is a trainer, a second user of the second device is a first trainee, a third user of the third device is a second trainee; and causing, by the one or more processors, the third device to illustrate the physical location, within the virtual environment, from a third viewing perspective, matching the first viewing perspective.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the additional information includes one of a two-dimensional image, a video, or a measurement.

“10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, further comprising: generating, by the one or more processors, a representation of the additional information; storing, by the one or more processors, in a computer memory, the virtual environment including the representation; and providing, by the one or more processors and from the computer memory, the virtual environment, including the representation, to a third device, the third device being operable to display the virtual environment, including the representation, asynchronously relative to the first device and the second device.

“11. A system, comprising: one or more processors; a communication module communicatively connected to the one or more processors and configured to communicate with computing devices via a communication network; one or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: initiating a virtual collaboration session between a first device and a second device by: establishing a first communication connection between the one or more processors and the first device, establishing a second communication connection, separate from the first communication connection, between the one or more processors and the second device, causing a virtual environment to be presented by the first device and by the second device, the virtual environment representing a physical location, and causing a view synchronization tool to be presented, by at least the first device, within the virtual environment; receiving, from the first device, an input via the view synchronization tool, the input indicative of a first viewing perspective of the physical location, within the virtual environment, as illustrated by the first device; causing, based at least in part on the input, the second device to illustrate the physical location, within the virtual environment, from a second viewing perspective matching the first viewing perspective; receiving, from the first device, a data capture command indicative of a request for additional information associated with the physical location represented in the virtual environment; and capturing, based at least in part on the data capture command, the additional information within the virtual environment.

“12. The system of claim 11, the operations further comprising: receiving, by the one or more processors and from the first device, sensor data from a position sensor, the sensor data indicating one or more of a position or movement of the first device; and determining, by the one or more processors, the first viewing perspective based at least in part on the sensor data.

“13. The system of claim 12, wherein the position sensor comprises at least one of an accelerometer, a gyroscope, or an inertial measurement unit associated with the first device.

“14. The system of claim 11, wherein: a first user of the first device is a trainer, a second user of the second device is a trainee, and the view synchronization tool is one of multiple trainer-exclusive data tools available for use by the trainer and unavailable for use by the trainee.

“15. The system of claim 14, the operations further comprising: storing, in a computer memory, the virtual collaboration session; receiving, from the first device, a request to access the virtual collaboration session to evaluate the trainee during the virtual collaboration session; and accessing the virtual collaboration session from the computer memory after conclusion of the virtual collaboration session and sending the virtual collaboration session to the first device for evaluation of the trainee during the virtual collaboration session.

“16. The system of claim 11, the operations further comprising: storing, in a computer memory, the virtual collaboration session, wherein providing the virtual environment to the second device includes accessing the virtual collaboration session from the computer memory asynchronously from the first device and sending the virtual collaboration session to the second device.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Ho, An. Virtual environment generation for collaborative building assessment. U.S. Patent Number 11758090, filed November 3, 2020, and published online on September 12, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11758090)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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