Method of controlling or augmenting a virtual environment or live video broadcast via sensed motion

1 . A method of controlling or augmenting a virtual reality environment or a live video broadcast according to sensed real time motion of a subject, the method comprising:

receiving, from an accelerometer or inertial measurement unit provided on an article of footwear or apparel worn by the subject, a data stream indicative of a monitored spatial motion of the article of footwear or apparel;

identifying at least one motion primitive from the received data stream, wherein the motion primitive is a discrete motion of the article of footwear or apparel or a predefined ordered sequence of such discrete motions, the discrete motion comprising one of translation, rotation, acceleration, jerk, impact, or periodic translation;

augmenting the virtual reality (VR) environment or the live video broadcast with a visual effect in response to the identified motion primitive, wherein the visual effect is displayed at a location corresponding to the subject;

transmitting a view of the VR environment or the live video broadcast to a viewer for display on a display device; and

wherein the transmitted view of the VR environment or live video broadcast contains the visual effect; and

wherein the visual effect includes a virtual pyrotechnics, or a graphic emanating from the subject within the live video broadcast.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the VR environment or the live video broadcast is a VR environment; and

wherein the VR environment includes a plurality of avatars including at least an avatar of the subject and an avatar of the viewer.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the visual effect includes a motion or action of the avatar of the subject.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the augmented VR environment or live video broadcast is a video broadcast of a sporting event.

5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the subject is present within the video broadcast.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the visual effect is a graphic emanating from the subject within the video broadcast.

7 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising receiving an indication of a preference or attribute of the viewer; and

altering the existence, nature, or color of the visual effect according to the preference or attribute of the viewer.

8 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising receiving an indication of one or more external triggers; and wherein the existence of the visual effect is further conditioned on the one or more external triggers being present.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the one or more external triggers comprise a game time of the sporting event, recent scoring activity within the sporting event, or relative positioning of other players within the sporting event.

10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

maintaining a correspondence table comprising a plurality of video effects, each video effect corresponding to a different predefined motion primitive or series of predefined motion primitives;

matching the identified motion primitive with one of the predefined motion primitives within the correspondence table; and

wherein the augmenting of the VR environment or live video broadcast with the visual effect comprises selecting the visual effect from the correspondence table that corresponds to the matched predefined motion primitives and overlaying the selected visual effect on the VR environment or the live video broadcast.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising selecting the correspondence table from a plurality of correspondence tables according to an attribute or preference of the viewer.