Ultrasound Can Let You Touch and Feel 3D Shapes in Thin Air

By Jamie Condliffe on 02 Dec 2014 at 6:45PM

Touch feedback has been advancing rapidly of recent time, and now we're at the s
tage where ultrasound can be used to create entire 3D shapes to touch and feel i
n thin air.
We've seen 2D surfaces rendered in thin air using ultrasound before, but now res
earchers from the Bristol Interaction and Graphics group has used it to create e
ntire 3D volumes. The researchers explain how it works:
The method uses ultrasound, which is focused onto hands above the device and tha
t can be felt. By focusing complex patterns of ultrasound, the air disturbances
can be felt as floating 3D shapes... The system generates an invisible 3D shape
that can be added to 3D displays to create something that can be seen and felt.
Don't believe them? The researchers show how it works by projecting their 3D vol
umes into oil in the video below, where the ultrasound can be seen as disturbanc
es on the surface. It clearly really works. The research is published in ACM Tra
nsactions on Graphics and will be on display at SIGGRAPH Asia 2014 later this we
ek.
The researchers reckon its first use in the real world will be in medicine, help
ing doctors feel things like tumours rendered from CT scans before they go anywh
ere near an operating theatre. But who knows what other possibilities exist for
such an amazing example of haptic feedback. [University of Bristol]