Two New Patents Hint at How Augmented Reality Could be Used in Disney Theme Parks

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The Walt Disney Company has recently had two patents become publicly published that describe implementation of Augmented Reality systems.

US #20170206709 "Systems and methods for augmenting an appearance of a hilt to simulate a bladed weapon" describes how Lightsabers could be implemented through an augmented reality system. The claims depict a lightsaber being used to cut through a door to reveal an enemy on the other side and a dual between lightsabers:

Systems and methods for augmenting an appearance of a hilt to simulate a bladed weapon

This disclosure relates to systems and methods for augmenting an appearance of a hilt to simulate a bladed weapon. A hilt may be augmented with a blade of a bladed weapon by detecting a landmark associated with the hilt, determining a position and/or an orientation of the hilt, determining an overlay image comprising the blade of the bladed weapon, wherein the blade is placed within the overlay image according to the determined position and/or the determined orientation of the hilt, and displaying the overlay image so that the blade of the bladed weapon appears to be attached to the hilt.

US #20180008897 "LOCATION-BASED EXPERIENCE WITH INTERACTIVE MERCHANDISE" describes a less specific system in which Guests would use objects to interact with their surroundings and implement augmented reality effects. The claims depict a Guest wearing gloves to produce an augmented reality effect and several general process flows as to how the system itself would function:

LOCATION-BASED EXPERIENCE WITH INTERACTIVE MERCHANDISE

A system for providing an interactive experience for multiple game-players. The experience is provided in a light-controlled setting where the game-players may wear or hold one or more of various toys (e.g., gloves). The system detects and recognizes the toy along with gestures and pointing efforts performed by the game-player and the system generates an effect based on the type of toy and the type of gesture. The system also generates one or more visual targets that are visible to the game-player such as projections, holograms, and displays of one or more of various fantasy virtual adversaries. The generated effects may include any combination of sensory effects including visual, audio, tactile, and smell/taste. The generated effect may be directed based on the pointing efforts of the game-player. The system may then register the effect on the target, if the pointing efforts intersect with the virtual location of the target.