US 11,908,066 B2
Image rendering method and apparatus
Marina Villanueva Barreiro, Acoruna (ES); Andrew James Bigos, Staines (GB); Gilles Christian Rainer, London (GB); Fabio Cappello, London (GB); and Timothy Edward Bradley, London (GB)
Assigned to Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc., Tokyo (JP)
Filed by Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc., Tokyo (JP)
Filed on Mar. 21, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/699,424.
Claims priority of application No. 2104114 (GB), filed on Mar. 24, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2022/0309741 A1, Sep. 29, 2022
Int. Cl. G06T 15/20 (2011.01); G06N 20/00 (2019.01); G06T 1/20 (2006.01)
CPC G06T 15/20 (2013.01) [G06N 20/00 (2019.01); G06T 1/20 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An image rendering method for an entertainment device for rendering a pixel at a viewpoint, comprising the steps of:
for a first element of a virtual scene, having a predetermined surface at a position within that scene,
obtaining a machine learning system previously trained to predict a factor that, when combined with a distribution function that characterises an interaction of light with the predetermined surface, generates a pixel value corresponding to the first element of the virtual scene as illuminated at the position;
providing the position and a direction based on the viewpoint to the machine learning system;
combining the predicted factor from the machine learning system with the distribution function to generate the pixel value corresponding to the illuminated first element of the virtual scene at the position; and
incorporating the pixel value into a rendered image for display;
wherein the obtaining step comprise:
identifying a current or anticipated state of an application determining the virtual scene to be rendered;
requesting a download of a machine learning system corresponding to the current or anticipated state, from among a plurality of machine learning systems corresponding to a plurality of states of the application, accessible via a remote server; and
download the requested machine learning system.