JP2002288101A - Chat character display method, chat character display program, chat character display program storage medium, and shared virtual space display device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To realize more effective display in a chat by effectively utilizing a three-dimensional display function of a shared virtual space. When a three-dimensional browser of a user B (or C) participating in a shared virtual space receives a text transmitted from a user A, the three-dimensional browser determines a predetermined specific content existing in the text. When a command is detected, a text string with the command added ("Hello")
Is generated, and the character string object 702 is displayed in front of the avatar 701 of the user A in the shared virtual space of the user B (or C). In the case of voice chat, after recognizing the received voice and converting it to text, the presence or absence of a specific command in the text is determined to determine whether three-dimensionalization is possible.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a display of a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate via a network, and more particularly to a chat character display method and a chat character display method capable of displaying a chat character string in three dimensions. The present invention relates to a character display program, a chat character display program storage medium, and a shared virtual space display device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a plurality of users who are separated from each other access a server from a client terminal (in the present specification, a terminal device is simply referred to as a terminal) to form a virtual cyber society. A technology for sharing a virtual space has been realized. A plurality of users can freely move within the virtual space by their own will, and can express their own alter ego (avatar) in the space.

[0003] A technique of chatting in which a plurality of users participate in such a virtual space at the same time and talk with each other in real time has been established. As the chat, a text chat performed via text and a voice chat performed via voice are known.

[0004]

However, in a client terminal for displaying the status of such a virtual space, a text chat or a voice chat may be displayed by a chat balloon in a shared virtual space. No further expressions had been made.

Accordingly, the present invention provides a chat character display method, a chat character display program, and a chat character display method that can effectively utilize a three-dimensional display function of a shared virtual space to realize a more effective display in a chat. A display program storage medium and a shared virtual space display device are provided.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, a chat character executed by a shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate through a network according to the present invention. A display method and a chat character display program for executing the display method include a receiving step of receiving a text transmitted from another user, and a command detecting step of detecting a predetermined specific command existing in the received text. And an object generation step of, when detecting the specific command, generating a three-dimensional character string object of the text character string to which the command is added, and displaying the three-dimensional character string object And a step.

[0007] The specific command is added to any chat character string desired by the user. The shared virtual space display device detects the command in the received text, specifies a character string to be three-dimensionalized, and generates a three-dimensional character string object for the character string.

By introducing a size specification command for specifying a character size to the specific command, a user can variably specify the size of the character string object.

The present invention is also applicable to voice chat. A chat character display method and a chat character display program for executing the chat character display method include a receiving step of receiving voice data transmitted from another user; and a voice data reproducing a transmission voice based on the received voice data. A reproducing step, a voice recognition step of recognizing the reproduced voice and converting it to text, a command detecting step of detecting a predetermined specific command present in the recognized text, and detecting the specific command And an object display step of generating a three-dimensional character string object of the text character string to which the command is added, and an object display step of displaying the three-dimensional character string object. And

In this case, the method may further include a volume recognition step of recognizing the loudness of the voice, and a size changing step of changing the size of the character string object according to the recognized volume.

Further, the present invention can be understood as a chat character display program storage medium storing a chat character display program for executing the above steps.
Examples of such a program storage medium include not only package media such as a floppy (registered trademark) disk, a CD-ROM, and a DVD, but also a semiconductor memory or a magnetic disk in which a program is temporarily or permanently stored. sell.

Further, according to the present invention, there is provided a shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate through a network, input means for inputting user operation information, and the shared virtual space. Display means for displaying a three-dimensional display screen, communication means for communicating with the network, and, when a predetermined command is included in the text message of the text chat received by the communication means, the command And a control unit for converting the character string of the voice message specified by the above into a three-dimensional object. This shared virtual space display device is a device for implementing the above-described chat character display method for text chat.

[0013] Another shared virtual space display device according to the present invention, which is compatible with voice chat, includes a display means for displaying a three-dimensional display screen of the shared virtual space, a communication means for communicating with a network, and Voice recognition means for voice-recognizing a voice message of a voice chat received by the communication means and converting the voice message into text; voice output means for outputting the voice message as voice; voice input means for inputting a voice message; When the text obtained from the recognizing means includes a predetermined command, a control means for converting a character string of the voice message specified by the command into a three-dimensional object is provided. This shared virtual space display device is a device for implementing the above-described chat character display method relating to voice chat.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

Internet WWW (World Wide We
In b), a client terminal that has received a document described in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) from a server via the Internet interprets the document with an HTML browser and displays the document on a display. This display is 2
It is a dimension display. On the other hand, VRML (Virtual Re
A client terminal that has received three-dimensional graphics data described using a three-dimensional graphics description language such as Quality Modeling Language (Interface Quality Modeling Language) interprets the data with a three-dimensional browser such as a VRML browser and includes a three-dimensional object group. A three-dimensional space can be displayed. In VRML, individual three-dimensional objects (cones, spheres, and the like) constitute a complex three-dimensional shape by forming a hierarchical structure. For more information on VRML,
For example, VRML97 specification: ht
tp: 〃www.web3d.org / technicalinfo / specifications / vr
See ml97 / index.htm. For details of the VRML browser, see, for example, Hideaki Matsumoto: SCA (Simp
le Component Architecture), SRF99 Technical
See Digests, P253.

At present, Comm as application software including VRML browser developed by the present applicant.
Using unity Place (trademark), a virtual cyber society PAW (Personal Agent World) in a three-dimensional space on the Internet has been developed (http://www.so-net.ne.jp/paw/). In this, a plurality of participants can share the same space and chat with each other while seeing each other.

FIG. 1 shows an external configuration of the entire system according to the present invention. In this system, a plurality of users have their own shared virtual space display devices 1 located at positions separated from each other.
From 0, the virtual space provided by the server 30 can be shared by accessing the server 30 via the Internet 20 (network). The shared virtual space display device 10 is an information processing device such as a personal computer (PC), and a desktop PC is shown in the figure. However, the shared virtual space display device 10 may be a notebook type or another form such as a portable terminal. Good. The user can freely move within the virtual space at his own will. Further, as described above, each user can display an avatar as his or her own alter ego in the space, and can perform text chat or voice chat between the users.

FIG. 2 schematically shows the internal configuration of each of the shared virtual space display device 10 and the server 30 shown in FIG.
The shared virtual space display device 10 includes a control device 11 including a CPU and the like, and a display device 1 as a display.
2. A microphone 13 as an audio input device, a speaker 14 as an audio output device, an external storage device 15 as a large-capacity nonvolatile storage device such as a hard disk device, and storing programs and data executed by the control device 11. A memory 16 such as a semiconductor storage device that provides a work area and a temporary storage area, a communication device 17 for performing communication (whether wired or wireless) with an external device (the Internet 20 in this case), and a user device Input device 18 such as a keyboard and a pointing device for inputting operation information and the like
It has.

It is assumed that the control device 11 also has functions such as encoding / decoding of voice data during voice chat, voice recognition, volume level detection, and the like.

The memory 16 stores an HTML browser 111 and a VRML browser 113 according to the embodiment of the present invention. Programs such as the browsers 111 and 113 may be stored in a nonvolatile memory such as a ROM in advance, or may be stored in the external storage device 15 and read into the memory 16 when necessary.

The HTML browser 111 uses Netscape Nav.
It is a WWW browser for two-dimensional display such as igator (trademark), and it is preferable to use it in cooperation with the VRML browser 113 including its various attached functions. The external storage device 15 stores an HTML file, a VRML file, a Java (trademark) script, and the like, which are fetched from outside (for example, via the Internet). Ja
The va script, when used with the VRML 97, makes it possible to describe a scene with higher interactivity. For this purpose, the HTML browser 111 also has a built-in Java interpreter 112.

On the other hand, the server 30 includes a control device 31 having a CPU and the like, a communication device 32 for communicating with the outside,
An external storage device 33 such as a hard disk device and a memory 34 such as a semiconductor storage device are provided.

Hereinafter, the operation in the present embodiment will be described.

FIG. 3 shows three users A,
FIG. 3B schematically illustrates a state in which B and C share a shared virtual space (world), that is, they exist in the same virtual space. Although this virtual space is logically one,
Physically, as shown in FIG. 4, it appears at the position of each user who is remote from each other. The virtual space is recognized by the browsers 401, 402, and 403 of the users A, B, and C by the function of the Community Place Bureau 400 in the server.

Community Place Bureau
This is software on a server that provides the virtual cyber society by receiving access from a three-dimensional browser including a VRML browser called Place Browser. In addition, Communit
y Place Bureau and the corresponding Community Place
For details of the Browseer, see, for example,
No. 684.

In a chat in such a shared virtual space, when a user who is a participant speaks words to other users, the present invention uses a tertiary character string as a new chat expression method. Consider the case of displaying as an original object. Here, the user A inputs a text or voice message to which the new command introduced in the present embodiment is added,
An object is created by three-dimensionalizing the character string.

First, consider the case of text chat.
In the present embodiment, a start tag “<3d>” and an end tag “<// 3d>” are introduced as the new commands. By sandwiching the three-dimensional object character string between the start tag and the end tag, it is possible to instruct the three-dimensional browser that the character string should be three-dimensional. In the example shown in FIG. 5, "<3d>H" is displayed in a window (not shown) on the display screen where the user A inputs a text chat.
and sends a message 405 saying “ello </ 3d>”.
Via the ace Bureau 400, the data is sent to the browsers 402 and 403 of the other users B and C as shown in FIG. Upon receiving the message 405, the browsers 402 and 403 of the user B and the user C determine that the message is a message from the user A, and instruct to generate the message as a three-dimensional character string object as described above. If the command is added, an object in which the character string is three-dimensionally generated is generated before the avatar of the user A in the three-dimensional space, and displayed as a message on the display device 12 (FIG. 2). This is shown in FIG.

FIG. 7 shows an example of a three-dimensional display screen displayed by the browser of the user B or C. For convenience, only the avatar of the user A is shown in this example. FIG.
As shown in FIG. 7A, when the browser receives the character string message to which the specific command as described above is added, FIG.
As shown in (b), the three-dimensional character string (here, “Hello”) is displayed in front of the avatar 701 of the user who sent the message (here, user A). As a result, it is possible to realize an expressive chat using a three-dimensional display function, as compared with the conventional two-dimensional character display.

Here, a case where a message issued by a certain user is transmitted to all other users existing in the shared virtual space has been described. However, similar to the conventional chat, a message is sent only to a specific partner. It is also possible to send.

FIG. 8 shows a schematic flow of a reception process at the time of text chat in the present embodiment. This process
It is executed by a VRML browser as a three-dimensional browser. First, when a text chat message is received (S11, Yes), the message is analyzed (S12). At this time, it is checked whether the specific command as described above is added to the message. If three-dimensional conversion is not instructed by such a command (S13, No), the message is displayed as a two-dimensional character string in a three-dimensional space as it is in the conventional text chat (S15). When three-dimensionalization is instructed (S13, Yes), a three-dimensional character string object is generated for the character string (S1).
4). Then, this character string object is displayed (S
15). After step S15, the process returns to the first step S11 to prepare for the next message display.

In the analysis of the message in step S12, the length of the character string (for example, the number of bytes) to which the above-mentioned command is added is checked, and a message longer than a predetermined length is excluded from three-dimensionalization. You may do so.

The tag of the above command is further extended to, for example, <3d size = "n"> character string <// 3
The user may be able to specify the character size as in d>. Here, n is a numerical value designating the character size.

Next, FIG. 9 shows a schematic flow of a reception process at the time of voice chat according to the present embodiment. This process
When the voice message is received (S21, Yes), first, the voice recognition unit in the control device 11 recognizes the voice message and converts it into text (S22). In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the voice corresponding to the start tag of the above-mentioned command is set as a reserved word, and the voice corresponding to the end tag is set as a reserved word in advance.

If the text obtained by the speech recognition does not include a predetermined command (S24, No),
Since this is the same as the conventional voice chat, the voice message is output as it is as voice (S30). If a predetermined command is included (S23, Yes), if it is a three-dimensionalization start command ("Rite Ishii"),
A preparation is made for recognizing a subsequent input voice message as a three-dimensional object character (S25).
Return to 21.

If it is determined in step S24 that the command is not a three-dimensionalization start command, it is next checked whether the command is a three-dimensionalization end command ("end") (S26). If the command is not the three-dimensionalization end command, the process proceeds to step S30 to output a voice as a normal voice message. If the command is a three-dimensionalization end command (S2
6, Yes), the stored three-dimensional object character string is determined (S27), and a three-dimensional character string object is generated from this character string (S28), and displayed in front of the avatar that issued the message (S28). S29). Thereafter, the process returns to the first step S21.

In this example, when displaying a three-dimensional character string object, the sound output of the character string is not performed. However, the sound output may be performed together with the display.

In the processing shown in FIG. 9, the character size at the time of displaying a three-dimensional character string during a voice chat is fixed, but the character size can be changed according to the volume of a voice message. In that case, in step S22, the volume of the voice (average voice level) is detected, and the character size command as described above is generated accordingly.

Conventionally, a user can create a three-dimensional object in a shared virtual space by designating a specific item using a GUI button, a menu, or the like. It could not be applied to any item other than the specific item being played, and was not an appropriate operation for chatting. According to the present embodiment, an arbitrary character string message can be converted into a three-dimensional object by a simpler method, and chat in a shared virtual space can be made more effective and attractive.

Although the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been described above, various modifications and changes other than those described above are possible. For example, the specific commands described above are merely examples for explanation, and the present invention is not limited to them. Further, although the example in which the voice recognition of the voice message in the voice chat is performed on the receiving side of the message has been described, the voice recognition may be performed on the transmitting side or the server.

According to the present invention, in a chat in a shared virtual space, a three-dimensional object can be generated without using a GUI or a menu. Also, any character string desired by the user can be made three-dimensional. Therefore, according to the present invention, a user can easily perform a chat using a three-dimensional character string with rich expressiveness.
As a result, the attractiveness of the service is improved, and the number of service users can be increased.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an external configuration of an entire system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration inside each of a shared virtual space display device shown in FIG. 1 and a server;

FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically illustrating a situation in which users A, B, and C, which are three users, share a shared virtual space (world).

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a state in which the shared virtual space shown in FIG. 3 appears and appears at the position of each user located at a remote place from each other.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a state of transmitting a message of a three-dimensional character string in text chat according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing how the transmission message of FIG. 5 reaches another user.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a three-dimensional display screen displayed by the transmission message of FIG. 5;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a schematic flow of a reception process at the time of text chat according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a schematic flow of a reception process at the time of voice chat according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 ... shared virtual space display device, 11 ... control device, 12 ...
Display device, 13 microphone, 14 speaker, 15 external storage device, 16 memory, 17 transmitting device, 20 Internet, 30 server, 31 control device, 32 communication device, 33 external storage device, 34 ... memory, 111 ...
HTML browser, 112 ... Java interpreter, 1
13 ... VRML browser

Claims (12)

[Claims] 1. A chat character display method executed in a shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate via a network, the text being transmitted from another user. Receiving a command, and a command detecting step of detecting a predetermined specific command existing in the received text.When detecting the specific command, a text string to which the command is added is converted into a three-dimensional text string. A chat character display method, comprising: an object generating step of generating a converted character string object; and an object displaying step of displaying the three-dimensionalized character string object. 2. A size changing step for changing a size of the character string object in accordance with the size designation command when a size designation command for designating a character size is added to the specific command. 3. The chat character display method according to claim 2, wherein: 3. A chat character display method executed in a shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate through a network, wherein a voice transmitted from another user is provided. A receiving step of receiving data; an audio data reproducing step of reproducing a transmitted voice based on the received voice data; a voice recognizing step of recognizing the reproduced voice and converting it to text; A command detection step of detecting a predetermined specific command, and an object generation step of, when detecting the specific command, generating a three-dimensional character string object of a text character string to which the command is added, And an object display step of displaying the three-dimensionalized character string object. A chat character display method characterized by the following. 4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: a volume recognition step of recognizing a loudness of the voice; and a size changing step of changing a size of the character string object according to the recognized volume. 3. Chat character display method described in 3. 5. A chat character display program for displaying a chat character string, which is executed in a shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate through a network. Receiving a text transmitted from a user, a command detecting step of detecting a predetermined specific command present in the received text, and when the specific command is detected, the command is added. An object generating step of generating a three-dimensional character string object of the text string, and an object displaying step of displaying the three-dimensional character string object. 6. A chat character display program for displaying a chat character string executed in a shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate through a network, the chat character display program comprising: A receiving step of receiving voice data transmitted from a user, a voice data reproducing step of reproducing a transmission voice based on the received voice data, a voice recognition step of recognizing the reproduced voice and converting it to text, A command detection step of detecting a predetermined specific command present in the recognized text, and, when the specific command is detected, a character string object obtained by three-dimensionalizing a text character string to which the command is added. An object generating step to generate, and an object for displaying the three-dimensional character string object. Chat character display program to be executed and-object display step, the. 7. A chat character display program storing a chat character display program for displaying a chat character string executed by a shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate through a network. A storage medium, a receiving step of receiving a text transmitted from another user; a command detecting step of detecting a predetermined specific command existing in the received text; and A chat that executes, when detected, an object generating step of generating a three-dimensional character string object of the text character string to which the command is added; and an object displaying step of displaying the three-dimensional character string object. Chat character display program that stores character display programs Beam storage medium. 8. A chat character display program storing a chat character display program for displaying a chat character string executed in a shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate via a network. A storage medium, a receiving step of receiving audio data transmitted from another user, an audio data reproducing step of reproducing transmitted audio based on the received audio data, and recognizing the reproduced audio. A voice recognition step for converting to text, a command detection step for detecting a predetermined specific command present in the recognized text, and a text string to which the command is added when the specific command is detected. An object generating step of generating a three-dimensional character string object, Chat character display program storage medium for storing a chat character display program for executing the object display step of displaying the indexed string object. 9. A shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate via a network, comprising: input means for inputting operation information of a user; Display means for displaying the original display screen, communication means for communicating with the network, and, when a predetermined command is included in the text message of the text chat received by this communication means, designation by the command Control means for converting a character string of a given voice message into a three-dimensional object. 10. The control means according to claim 1, wherein, when the text message includes a command for designating a character size as one of the commands, the control means converts the three-dimensional object into the designated character size. 10. The shared virtual space display device according to claim 9, wherein: 11. A shared virtual space display device for displaying a shared virtual space in which a plurality of users participate via a network, comprising: a display unit for displaying a three-dimensional display screen of the shared virtual space; Communication means for performing communication of the following, voice recognition means for voice-recognizing a voice message of the voice chat received by the communication means and converting the voice message into text, voice output means for outputting the voice message as voice, and inputting the voice message Voice input means, when the text obtained from the voice recognition means includes a predetermined command, the control means to convert the character string of the voice message specified by the command into a three-dimensional object, A shared virtual space display device comprising: 12. The voice recognition means further has a function of detecting a volume level of the voice message, and the control means has a three-dimensional character size corresponding to a volume level detected by the voice recognition means. The shared virtual space display device according to claim 11, wherein the shared virtual space display device is converted into an object.