EYE TRACKING BASED VIDEO TRANSMISSION AND COMPRESSION

1 .- 12 . (canceled)

13 . A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving gaze information about an observer of a video stream;

determining a video compression spatial map for the video stream based on the received gaze information and performance characteristics of a network connection with the observer, wherein determining of the video compression spatial map includes:

selecting a second shape within a first shape of a region of interest, where the region of interest corresponds to a predicted eye position;

sharing a center of the region of interest;

scaling a size of the second shape in proportion to network latency times a maximum eye velocity; and

selecting a video compression profile that includes (1) lower compression inside the second shape, (2) medium compression outside the second shape but inside the first shape; and (3) higher compression outside the first shape;

compressing the video stream according to the video compression spatial map; and

sending the compressed video stream to the observer.

14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the receiving of the gaze information is a receiving of gaze information from a head-mounted or display-mounted gaze tracker.

15 . The method of claim 13 , wherein:

the gaze information includes information about an instantaneous eye position;

determining of the video compression spatial map includes:

identifying the center of the region;

selecting a first shape for the region of interest; and

selecting a video compression profile that includes higher compression outside the first shape.

16 . The method of claim 15 , wherein:

the video compression profile corresponds to a video quality profile, a video resolution profile, or a video color profile.

17 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the video compression profile increases with distance from the center of the region of interest.

18 . The method of claim 15 , wherein:

the performance characteristics of the network connection include information about an available bandwidth; and

determining of the video compression spatial map includes scaling a size of the first shape in proportion to a ratio of the available bandwidth to a bandwidth for the video stream without compression.

19 . The method of claim 15 , wherein:

the gaze information includes information about an instantaneous eye velocity;

the performance characteristics of the network connection include information about network latency; and

the center of the region of interest corresponds to the instantaneous eye position plus an offset proportional to the instantaneous eye velocity times the network latency.

20 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the lower compression is zero compression.

21 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the maximum eye velocity is a human saccadic eye velocity.

22 . A computer-implemented system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer memory devices interoperably coupled with the one or more processors and having tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable media storing one or more instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform one or more operations, comprising:

receiving gaze information about an observer of a video stream;

determining a video compression spatial map for the video stream based on the received gaze information and performance characteristics of a network connection with the observer, wherein determining of the video compression spatial map includes:

selecting a second shape within a first shape of a region of interest, where the region of interest corresponds to a predicted eye position;

sharing a center of the region of interest;

scaling a size of the second shape in proportion to network latency times a maximum eye velocity; and

selecting a video compression profile that includes (1) lower compression inside the second shape, (2) medium compression outside the second shape but inside the first shape; and (3) higher compression outside the first shape;

compressing the video stream according to the video compression spatial map; and

sending the compressed video stream to the observer.

23 . The computer-implemented system of claim 22 , wherein the receiving of the gaze information is a receiving of gaze information from a head-mounted or display-mounted gaze tracker.

24 . The computer-implemented system of claim 22 , wherein:

the gaze information includes information about instantaneous eye position;

determining of the video compression spatial map includes:

identifying a center of a region of interest corresponding to a predicted eye position;

selecting a first shape for the region of interest; and

selecting a video compression profile that includes higher compression outside the first shape.

25 . The computer-implemented system of claim 24 , wherein:

the video compression profile corresponds to a video quality profile, a video resolution profile, or a video color profile.

26 . The computer-implemented system of claim 24 , wherein the video compression profile increases with distance from the center of the region of interest.

27 . A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing one or more instructions executable by a computer system to perform one or more operations, comprising:

receiving gaze information about an observer of a video stream;

determining a video compression spatial map for the video stream based on the received gaze information and performance characteristics of a network connection with the observer, wherein determining of the video compression spatial map includes:

selecting a second shape within a first shape of a region of interest, where the region of interest corresponds to a predicted eye position;

sharing a center of the region of interest;

scaling a size of the second shape in proportion to network latency times a maximum eye velocity; and

selecting a video compression profile that includes (1) lower compression inside the second shape, (2) medium compression outside the second shape but inside the first shape; and (3) higher compression outside the first shape;

compressing the video stream according to the video compression spatial map; and

sending the compressed video stream to the observer.

28 . The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 27 , wherein the receiving of the gaze information is a receiving of gaze information from a head-mounted or display-mounted gaze tracker.

29 . The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 27 , wherein:

the gaze information includes information about instantaneous eye position;

determining of the video compression spatial map includes:

identifying a center of a region of interest corresponding to a predicted eye position;

selecting a first shape for the region of interest; and

selecting a video compression profile that includes higher compression outside the first shape.

30 . The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 29 , wherein:

the video compression profile corresponds to a video quality profile, a video resolution profile, or a video color profile.

31 . The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 29 , wherein the video compression profile increases with distance from the center of the region of interest.