DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/26/2026, 02/05/2026, 01/26/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 10 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kapulkin et al. (US 2014/342823 A1) hereinafter referred to as Kapulkin.
Claim 1. Kapulkin discloses a method for updating light in response to a content change in a virtual scene (Kapulkin, see abstract), the method comprising:
performing voxelization processing on a virtual scene to obtain a plurality of initial voxels corresponding to the virtual scene, each initial voxel carrying light information of a corresponding position in the virtual scene (KAPULKIN, [0047]: "A voxel grid for determining illumination effects for a particular player may be created, maintained, and associated with that particular player", [0049] "At this time of entry, in an embodiment of the invention a voxel grid is associated with the portion of the virtual world displayed for the particular player, and algorithms are executed to determine illumination values for individual cells in the voxel grid, taking into account light sources and direction, object locations and the like");
selecting at least one voxel from the plurality of initial voxels in response to the content change in the virtual scene; updating light information carried in the at least one selected voxel, to obtain an updated voxel corresponding to the at least one selected voxel (KAPULKIN, [0049] "Then as the new player interacts with the game the illumination values will be adjusted as needed depending on changes in viewpoint, movement of objects and avatars and the like."; [0052] "illumination for all surfaces need not be recalculated for an entire frame each time something changes. Illumination values for voxel cells need only be made immediately for cells in the immediate vicinity of an avatar or an object moving. Cells in other regions that may be affected by movement may be updated in subsequent frame periods"); and
updating light information of a virtual viewpoint in the virtual scene based on the updated voxel and other initial voxels whose light information has not been updated (KAPULKIN: par. 49: "At this time of entry, in an embodiment of the invention a voxel grid is associated with the portion of the virtual world displayed for the particular player, and algorithms are executed to determine illumination values for individual cells in the voxel grid, taking into account light sources and direction, object locations and the like. Then as the new player interacts with the game the illumination values will be adjusted as needed depending on changes in viewpoint, movement of objects and avatars and the like. The maintained and adjusted illumination values are used to control brightness for surfaces in that player's display": in other words, in KAPULKIN, the illumination of voxels affected by player movement and that are visible from the virtual camera are updated/adjusted).Claim 10 recites a n electronic device comprising: a memory, configured to store computer-executable instructions; and a processor, configured to implement, when executing the computer-executable instructions stored in the memory (See KAPULKIN Abstract system with storage and processor). Claim 10 essentially recites the same limitations as claim 1. Therefore, the rejection of claim 1 is applied to claim 10. Claim 19 recites a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored therein (See KAPULKIN [0013]). Claim 19 essentially recites the same limitations as claim 1. Therefore, the rejection of claim 1 is applied to claim 19.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-9, 11-18 and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Claims 2, 11 and 20, no prior art discloses alone or in combination the method according to claims 1, 10 and 19 respectively, wherein the selecting at least one voxel from the plurality of initial voxels in response to the content change in the virtual scene comprises: in response to the content change in the virtual scene, obtaining a camera position of a virtual camera in the virtual scene with changed content; obtaining a voxel position of a voxel center point of each initial voxel in the virtual scene, and determining a voxel distance between the camera position and the voxel position; and selecting at least one voxel from the plurality of initial voxels based on the voxel distance.Claim 3 and 12 depends on allowable claims 2 and 11 respectively. Claims 4 and 13, no prior art discloses alone or in combination the method according to claim 1, wherein the updating light information carried in the at least one selected voxel, to obtain an updated voxel corresponding to the at least one selected voxel comprises: determining, from virtual scene points of the virtual scene, a plurality of target virtual scene points located in the selected voxel; obtaining target light information of each target virtual scene point in the selected voxel, and performing weighted summation on all pieces of target light information to obtain updated light information; and updating the light information carried in the selected voxel to the updated light information, to obtain the updated voxel corresponding to the selected voxel.Claims 5 and 14 depend on allowable claims 4 and 13 respectively. Claims 6 and 15, no prior art discloses alone or in combination the method according to claim1, wherein the updating light information of a virtual viewpoint in the virtual scene based on the updated voxel and other initial voxels whose light information has not been updated comprises: determining, from the updated voxel and the other initial voxels, a target voxel in which the virtual viewpoint is located, and obtaining light information of the target voxel; determining the light information of the target voxel as updated light information of the virtual viewpoint; and updating the light information of the virtual viewpoint to the updated light information of the virtual viewpoint.Claims 7 and 16, no prior art discloses alone or in combination the method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises: performing spatial-domain correction on the updated light information to obtain first light information; performing time-domain correction on the updated light information to obtain light information; and performing error correction on the updated light information based on the first light information and the second light information.Claims 8 and 17, no prior art discloses alone or in combination the method according to claims 7 and 16 respectively, wherein the performing spatial-domain correction on the updated light information to obtain first light information comprises: determining, from the updated voxel and the initial voxel other than the to-be-updated voxel, a target voxel in which the virtual viewpoint is located, and a plurality of adjacent voxels adjacent to the target voxel; selecting a target adjacent voxel from the plurality of adjacent voxels; and obtaining light information of the target voxel and light information of each target adjacent voxel, and performing weighted summation on the light information of the target voxel and the light information of each target adjacent voxel, to obtain the first light information of the virtual viewpoint.Claims 9 and 18 , no prior art discloses alone or in combination the method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises: obtaining a pixel corresponding to the virtual viewpoint on an imaging plane of the virtual camera; determining a viewpoint distance between the virtual camera and the virtual viewpoint, and determining initial light information of the pixel based on the viewpoint distance and the updated light information of the virtual viewpoint; determining, from a plurality of screen probes arranged on the imaging plane, at least one target screen probe whose distance from the pixel is less than a distance threshold, the screen probe being configured to store light information of a corresponding position on the imaging plane; and performing weighted summation on light information stored in each target screen probe and the initial light information of the pixel, to obtain target light information of the pixel.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is as follows:
US 20150170401 A1 The method involves acquiring (822) several voxels associated with the virtual world, in which the voxels including a first voxel. A cubify value is assigned (828) to the first voxel using a voxel selection tool. Several images of the virtual world are rendered (832) based on the voxels, and the first voxel is rendered to include rectilinear surfaces positioned within the first voxel based on the cubify value assigned to the first voxel. The images are displayed (834) with the rendered first voxel.
US 20140267264 A1 One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for performing voxelization. The technique involves identifying a voxel that is intersected by a first graphics primitive that has a front side and a back side and selecting a plurality of sample points within the voxel. The technique further involves determining, for each sample point included in the plurality of sample points, whether the sample point is located on the front side of the first graphics primitive or on the back side of the first graphics primitive. Finally, the technique involves storing, for at least a first sample point included in the plurality of sample points, a first result in a voxel mask reflecting whether the first sample point is located on the front side of the first graphics primitive or on the back side of the first graphics primitive.
US 20020154113 A1 A graphics model of an elephant is made by using bitmap silhouettes of a physical model of an elephant in different orientations to carve away voxels from a voxel block. This gives an intuitively simple tool to enable a user to create graphics representations of physical objects for use in, e.g., virtual environment and in video games.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARTIN MUSHAMBO whose telephone number is (571)270-3390. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday (8:00AM-5:00PM).
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/MARTIN MUSHAMBO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2615
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