Touch to Feel the Virtual World

By: Ega Gefrie F. (110533430597) Febrilina Pramudyanti(110533430) Muqoddas(110533430)

Haptic Technology
Haptic technology is a technology that simulated the sense of touch through tactile feedback mechanisms. Haptics are already common in devices such as smartphones, where touch sensation enhance the user experience. But when it comes to virtual reality, however, its far more challenging to translate tactile cues.

Question
But how can a user touch and feel object inside virtual world? Can a flat touchscreen convey depth, weight, movement and shape?

Answer
The answer is yes, the scientist from Natural Interaction Research group at Microsoft Research Redmoud have solved it. They mounted a multitouch, stereo-vision 3-D monitor on a robot arm to study how the kinesthetic haptic sense can augment touchscreen interactions. The result is Actuated 3-D Display with Haptic Feedback.

Actuated 3-D Display with Haptic Feedback

Its a project that features a haptic device provides 3-D physical simulation with force feedback. By moving a finger on the screen, the user can interact with on-screen 3-D object and experience different force responses that correspond to the physical simulation.

The Power of One Dimension

The major component of its project is Contour detection that detect only the Z axis of the application. So, it turned out being limited with one dimension of movemet (Z axis), but it provided valuable insights into how much or little data humans need to detect the shape and type of object they touch.

Idle Forces at Work

This feature might be not notice by users but was essential to its fuction, but thanks to this small idle force, the screen can follow the users fingers in depth excursions, until a haptic force beyond the idle force is commanded.

Exploring Data Through Touch

This technology is very usefull in many subjects of life, the example is explore a 3-D image of brain, built from volumetric data.

You can pushing a finger through the layers of the brain to travel through the data and imagine receiving haptic feedback when encounter an anomaly, such as a tumor, because we can change the haptic response based on what we touch.

Video

Thanks for Your Attention =D