Visual, auditory, and haptic

displays
 Introduction to displays
• Display: device which presents perceptual
information
• Often ‘display’ used to mean ‘visual
display’
• Goal: display devices which accurately
represent perceptions in simulated world
(i.e., higher levels of immersion)
 Vision
• Stimulus: light of wavelengths ~350-750
nm
 Visual displays for VEs
• Standard monitor (mono/stereo)
• Head-mounted/head-referenced
• Projected (usually stereo)
– single-screen
– multiple, surrounding screens
• Retinal display
• Volumetric displays
 Characteristics of visual displays
• Field of regard (FOR), field of view (FOV)
• Brightness, contrast ratio
• Resolution
• Screen geometry
• Light transfer
• Refresh rate
• Ergonomics
VR with a monitor
Head-mounted displays (HMDs)
• full surround (FOR=360)
• simple stereo
• Cumbersome (large)
• tethering to computer
• often small FOV
• single user
 Surround-screen displays
• less obtrusive headgear
• multi-user
• better stereo
• occlusion problem
• missing sides
 Surround-screen displays
• Video:
Six-sided CAVE (Duke U. DiVE)
 Tabletop displays

• direct manipulation
• “god’s-eye” view
• change orientation
• small FOR
 Virtual retinal display (VRD)
• HIT lab / Microvision
• image scanned directly
onto retina
• great potential
 Volumetric display
• Pixels displayed in
actual 3D space
• Multi-user correct
viewing
• Size issues
• Can’t move/reach into
display
 Volumetric display
• Video
 Which visual display to use?
• Consider lists of pros and cons
• Consider depth cues supported
• Consider level of visual immersion
• But this is a very hard question to answer
empirically
• Instead of comparing actual displays,
compare levels of immersion
 Auditory displays
• Second most studied sense
• Second most common VE display
• Stimulus: disturbance of molecules in a
medium (air)
• Perceptions: pitch, loudness, location
 Simple VE audio

• Intensity fall-off (1/d2)

• Headphones also block out real-world
noises
• Ambient sound (e.g. stream)
• Present speech instead of text
 3D auditory displays

• Technologies:
– Speaker-based
– Headphone-based
• Uses:
– Virtual objects emitting sound
– Sensory substitution
 Auditory displays
• Video clip (1) shows the actual physical
environment in which the virtual reality system
was installed, and shows a participant during the
course of the exploratory phase of the
experiment.
• Video clip (2) shows the virtual environment
during several phases of the experimental
procedure. The virtual scene is shown from both
the participants subjective view and also the
overhead view. The virtual audio scene is also
included and is rendered for the participant's
position in the scene.
 Haptic Displays
• Touch
– Actually a range of skin senses
– touch / pressure
– hot / cold
– pain
• Useful for object identification &
understanding
 Haptic displays
• Exoskeleton
• Robot arms
• Phantom
• Tactile devices
• Video: haptic
Prototyping
– http://
www.youtube.com/
watch?v=-i9Wm2rTsao
SPIDAR haptic display
 Passive haptics
• Use of props - “poor man’s” haptic
• Display
– ARtoolkit
– pen & tablet
 Haptic displays
• Displaying to other skin senses
• Simple, special-purpose “displays” for
temperature, air movement, etc.
– Fan
– Heat lamp
 Olfactory displays
• Sense of smell not studied extensively -
use in VEs?
• A few academic projects
• Smell synthesis still in the future
 Olfactory displays
• Video: "Fragra": Entertainment System
Utilizing Olfactory Display by
Arito Mochizuki
 Vestibular/kinesthetic displays
• Sense of body, self-motion
• Virtual body representation
• Can “display” to these senses by:
– Using motion platforms
– Stimulating the proper parts of the brain
 Conclusions
• Making VEs multi-sensory is becoming
easier becoming cheaper
• But most VEs still use only visual display
• We need to study the effects of level of
auditory and haptic immersion