Haptic Texture Content Library
Automation, Generation, and Manipulation of Digital Haptic Contents
In the contemporary era, one of the biggest challenges faced by haptics technology is the availability of digital haptic contents. Haptic interaction with an object in virtual, augmented, or mixed reality requires a haptic model that governs the interaction responses from the object. The haptic models can be fashioned after an object from real life or built up from scratch by a designer. This process of generating a haptic model is non-trivial and can take a significant amount of time and effort. The rapid progress of haptics technology and widespread industrial interest signifies that haptics will soon proliferate myriad aspects of our life. In an effort to make haptics technology available to the masses and scalable for personal use, there lies a need to automate and speed up the process of haptic modeling.
Automatic Haptic Texture Model Assignment
This research aims at developing a framework for the efficient haptic model building based on data from image features of textures and their perceptual haptic attributes. In this work, we associate data-driven haptic models, for stiffness, friction, and surface texture, with their image features and construct “The Haptic Texture Contents Library.” Then, we seek new perception and image-based techniques to automatically assign the acquired models into 3D mesh models.
Haptic Texture Attribute Space
This project strives to provide a haptic attribute space where texture surfaces are located based on their haptic attributes. The main aim of the haptic attribute space is to come up with a standardized model for representing and identifying haptic textures analogous to the RGB model for colors. To this end, a four-dimensional haptic attribute space is established from 100 real-life texture surfaces according to their haptic attributes. The generalization and scalability of the haptic attribute space are achieved by training a 1D-CNN model for predicting attributes of haptic textures.
Haptic Texture Authoring
It would facilitate contents generation if we could freely edit the perceptual properties of real measurements, e.g., creating a new haptic texture having a slightly increased roughness from a real surface, a new texture where the roughness value is inherited from one and hardness from another, and a texture that can be perceived as lying exactly in the middle of two real textures. Efficiently creating such textures from real textures is the goal of present work, and we call this as haptic texture authoring. Texture authoring is achieved by establishing an association between physical attributes of data-driven texture models and their haptic perception. This association is represented in the form of a 2D space containing real textures as functions of their haptic attributes. Textures within this space having arbitrary perceptual attributes can be rendered on various haptic interfaces.
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HapWheel
Embedded Haptic Displays in the Steering Wheel
This project presents a novel steering design that contains ubiquitous haptic displays embedded into a steering wheel. The haptic displays are used to interact with the different in-car control functionalities. The main purpose of this design is to reduce sensory demand on the visual and cognitive senses and use haptic communication for interacting with in-car controls. The steering wheel provides haptic feedback in the form of associative vibrotactile feedback as positive reinforcement. The designed steering wheel is readily deployable into all current automobiles without significant overload. The user testing has suggested that the design is easy to adapt for new users and significantly reduces manual, visual, and cognitive distractions in an automotive context.
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VR Fire Extinguisher
A haptic enabled fire extinguisher model for safety training
Haptics plays an important role in the digitization and virtualization of the fine arts. The brush of a stroke can be visually represented, however, an artist requires the perception of brush on canvas to be able to truly immerse in digital art. The current project provides the haptic experience of brush on canvas, enabling artists to perceive the experience of real painting in a virtual or augmented environment.
A selection of brushes and canvases is made available for drawing. The models of each brush on a specific canvas are recorded and then rendered according to the selection of the artist. The system provides stiffness, friction, and texture rendering for various brush sizes and canvases.
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Haptically Augmented Painting Brush
Haptics plays an important role in the digitization and virtualization of the fine arts. The brush of a stroke can be visually represented, however, an artist requires the perception of brush on canvas to be able to truly immerse in digital art. The current project provides the haptic experience of brush on canvas, enabling artists to perceive the experience of real painting in a virtual or augmented environment.
A selection of brushes and canvases is made available for drawing. The models of each brush on a specific canvas are recorded and then rendered according to the selection of the artist. The system provides stiffness, friction, and texture rendering for various brush sizes and canvases.
Get in touch for more information about this project.