Patent ID: 8952888
Filing Date: 2015-02-10
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for conveying an emotion to a person being exposed to multimedia information, by way of tactile stimulation using a plurality of actuators arranged in a vicinity of the person's body, the method comprising a) exposing the person to multimedia information including video and/or audio information and tactile stimulation information; b) extracting the video and/or audio information from the multimedia information; c) extracting the tactile stimulation information from the multimedia information, wherein said extracted tactile stimulation information comprises a pre-stored sequence of tactile stimulation patterns comprising signal shapes which are pre-selected from a library of signal shapes, d) controlling the plurality of actuators in time and space according to the pre-stored sequence of tactile stimulation patterns, wherein the plurality of actuators are steered by electronics that are addressed over a bus structure, wherein the bus structure wirelessly communicates with a metadata player via a transceiver coupled to the bus structure; wherein the tactile stimulation patterns are time synchronized with the audio/visual information to enable a predefined vibrotactile stimulation of one ore more body regions of the person'body at predefined points in time to convey emotions to the person in respond to the audio/visual information; wherein the multimedia information comprises an original video stream and a corresponding metadata file generated by a metadata editor, the metadata file comprising information from the original video stream containing said video and/or audio information, said tactile stimulation information comprising a tactile data block with information about the tactile stimulation, and synchronization information for synchronizing the tactile stimulation information to the original video stream, and wherein the tactile data block comprises the library of signal shapes and tactile stimulation patterns, each signal shape in the library of signal shapes defining a waveform signal for steering an individual actuator, and each pattern comprising a sequence of actuator settings defining which activators are activated at each point in time throughout the duration of the pattern; wherein each pattern in the library is designed to control certain actuators to stimulate a bodily response associated with a specific emotion.