Collaborative virtual environment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11069252-B2
Application number	US-201815959892-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 23, 2018
Priority date	Apr 23, 2018
Publication date	Jul 20, 2021
Grant date	Jul 20, 2021

Abstract

A device may provide, to user devices, a set of objects that are to be used by the user devices as part of a collaborative virtual environment. The collaborative virtual environment may support a virtual workshop. The set of objects may include objects capable of being used to solve a problem that is presented to users within the virtual workshop. The device may receive data describing a set of solutions. The device may curate the data describing the set of solutions using one or more natural language processing techniques. The device may rank the set of solutions that has been curated using a ranking technique or a machine learning technique. The device may provide data identifying a highest ranked solution or data identifying the set of solutions for display within the virtual workshop or to additional user devices that are accessible outside of the virtual workshop.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A device, comprising:
one or more memories; and
one or more processors, communicatively coupled to the one or more memories, to:
provide, to a plurality of user devices, a set of objects to use in a collaborative virtual environment,
wherein the collaborative virtual environment is associated with a group of users to collaborate or brainstorm,
wherein the collaborative virtual environment supports a virtual workshop that is a virtual reality and/or augmented reality representation of an in-person workshop, and
wherein the set of objects includes objects being used to solve a problem that is presented to users within the virtual workshop;

provide, to the plurality of user devices, an interface for displaying the virtual workshop;
wherein the virtual workshop includes a virtual whiteboard;

receive, from the plurality of user devices, data associated with the virtual workshop;
determine whether the data relates to data describing a set of solutions or data describing user feedback;
provide for display, on the virtual whiteboard, information related to the set of solutions or information related to the user feedback based on determining whether the data relates to the data describing the set of solutions or the data describing the user feedback,
wherein the information related to the set of solutions and the information related to the user feedback are displayed on the virtual whiteboard as a solution or as user feedback;

curate the data associated with the virtual workshop using one or more natural language processing techniques;
rank the set of solutions that has been curated using a ranking technique or a data model; and
provide data identifying a highest ranked solution or data identifying the set of solutions for display within the virtual workshop and to one or more additional user devices that are accessible outside of the virtual workshop.

2. The device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are further to:
receive, from a user device of the plurality of user devices, a request for an additional object,
wherein the request is a request for a virtualized representation of a person, a place, or a thing;

process information associated with a data source to identify data describing the person, the place, or the thing; and
generate the additional object using the data describing the person, the place, or the thing.

3. The device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors, when curating the data associated with the virtual workshop, are to:
generate a set of annotations for the data describing the set of solutions by using a natural language processing technique, of the one or more natural language processing techniques, to process the data describing the user feedback; and
wherein the one or more processors, when ranking the set of solutions, are to:
execute the ranking technique to rank the set of solutions based on the set of annotations.

4. The device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors, when curating the data associated with the virtual workshop, are to:
generate a set of annotations for the data describing the set of solutions by using a natural language processing technique, of the one or more natural language processing techniques, to compare the data describing the set of solutions to a set of scoring parameters; and
wherein the one or more processors, when ranking the set of solutions, are to:
execute the ranking technique to rank the set of solutions based on the set of annotations.

5. The device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors, when ranking the set of solutions, are to:
rank the set of solutions using the data model,
wherein the data model has been trained on historical data relating to other virtual workshops, and
wherein the one or more processors cause the data model to:
receive the data associated with the virtual workshop,
process the data associated with the virtual workshop, and
output a set of values that are used to rank the set of solutions.

6. The device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are further to:
generate, after a particular solution, of the set of solutions, is selected as a solution to be implemented, one or more sets of additional objects that identify an implementation plan of the solution that is to be implemented; and
provide the one or more sets of additional objects to the plurality of user devices to allow the plurality of user devices to display the one or more sets of additional objects within the collaborative virtual environment.

7. The device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are further to:
generate, after a particular solution, of the set of solutions, is selected as a solution to be implemented, one or more sets of additional objects that enable the plurality of user devices to simulate an implementation of the particular solution; and
provide the one or more sets of additional objects to the plurality of user devices to allow the plurality of user devices to display the one or more sets of additional objects within the collaborative virtual environment.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, the instructions comprising:
one or more instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
receive, from a plurality of user devices, requests to access a collaborative virtual environment to use in a virtual workshop,
wherein the collaborative virtual environment is associated with a group of users to collaborate or brainstorm,
wherein the requests include a workshop identifier associated with the virtual workshop, and
wherein the virtual workshop is a virtual reality and/or augmented reality representation of an in-person workshop;

obtain a set of objects to use within the collaborative virtual environment using the workshop identifier associated with the virtual workshop,
wherein the set of objects include objects being used to solve a problem that is presented to users within the virtual workshop;

provide, to the plurality of user devices, an interface for displaying the virtual workshop,
wherein the virtual workshop includes a virtual whiteboard;

provide the set of objects to the plurality of user devices to allow the plurality of user devices to display the set of objects within the virtual workshop;
receive, from the plurality of user devices, data associated with the virtual workshop;
determine whether the data relates to data describing a set of solutions or data describing user feedback;
provide for display, on the virtual whiteboard, information related to the set of solutions or information related to the user feedback based on determining whether the data relates to the data describing the set of solutions or the data describing the user feedback,
wherein the information related to the set of solutions and the information related to the user feedback is displayed on the virtual whiteboard as a solution or as user feedback;

curate the data associated with the virtual workshop using one or more natural language processing techniques;
rank the set of solutions, that has been curated, using a ranking technique or a data model; and
provide data identifying a highest ranked solution or data identifying the set of solutions that has been ranked to at least one of:
one or more of the plurality of user devices, or
additional user devices that are accessible to users participating in the virtual workshop.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the set of objects include at least one of:
objects relating to user preferences of users that use the plurality of user devices to participate in the virtual workshop,
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Assignees

• Accenture Global Solutions Ltd

Inventors

• Ghatage Prakash
• Viswanathan Kumar
• Rajavelu Balachandar Santhosh Kumar
• Varghese Vinu
• Iyer Raghavan
• D'Silva Ashwin

Classifications

• G06F1/163 Primary

  Wearable computers, e.g. on a belt · CPC title

• G09B7/00

  Electrically-operated teaching apparatus or devices working with questions and answers (mechanically operated G09B3/00; computing arrangements G06F) · CPC title

• H04L65/403

  Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences (data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15) · CPC title

• G06F3/0346

  with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a three-dimensional [3D] space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors · CPC title

• G09B5/065

  Combinations of audio and video presentations, e.g. videotapes, videodiscs, television systems · CPC title