Haptic Rendering


Book Description

For a long time, human beings have dreamed of a virtual world where it is possible to interact with synthetic entities as if they were real. It has been shown that the ability to touch virtual objects increases the sense of presence in virtual environments. This book provides an authoritative overview of state-of-theart haptic rendering algorithms




Haptics Rendering and Applications


Book Description

There has been significant progress in haptic technologies but the incorporation of haptics into virtual environments is still in its infancy. A wide range of the new society's human activities including communication, education, art, entertainment, commerce and science would forever change if we learned how to capture, manipulate and reproduce haptic sensory stimuli that are nearly indistinguishable from reality. For the field to move forward, many commercial and technological barriers need to be overcome. By rendering how objects feel through haptic technology, we communicate information that might reflect a desire to speak a physically- based language that has never been explored before. Due to constant improvement in haptics technology and increasing levels of research into and development of haptics-related algorithms, protocols and devices, there is a belief that haptics technology has a promising future.




High Fidelity Haptic Rendering


Book Description

The human haptic system, among all senses, provides unique and bidirectional communication between humans and their physical environment. Yet, to date, most human-computer interactive systems have focused primarily on the graphical rendering of visual information and, to a lesser extent, on the display of auditory information. Extending the frontier of visual computing, haptic interfaces, or force feedback devices, have the potential to increase the quality of human-computer interaction by accommodating the sense of touch. They provide an attractive augmentation to visual display and enhance the level of understanding of complex data sets. They have been effectively used for a number of applications including molecular docking, manipulation of nano-materials, surgical training, virtual prototyping, and digital sculpting. Compared with visual and auditory display, haptic rendering has extremely demanding computational requirements. In order to maintain a stable system while displaying smooth and realistic forces and torques, high haptic update rates in the range of 500-1000 Hz or more are typically used. Haptics present many new challenges to researchers and developers in computer graphics and interactive techniques. Some of the critical issues include the development of novel data structures to encode shape and material properties, as well as new techniques for geometry processing, data analysis, physical modeling, and haptic visualization. This synthesis examines some of the latest developments on haptic rendering, while looking forward to exciting future research in this area. It presents novel haptic rendering algorithms that take advantage of the human haptic sensory modality. Specifically it discusses different rendering techniques for various geometric representations (e.g. point-based, polygonal, multiresolution, distance fields, etc), as well as textured surfaces. It also shows how psychophysics of touch can provide the foundational design guidelines for developing perceptually driven force models and concludes with possible applications and issues to consider in future algorithmic design, validating rendering techniques, and evaluating haptic interfaces.




High Fidelity Haptic Rendering


Book Description

The human haptic system, among all senses, provides unique and bidirectional communication between humans and their physical environment. Yet, to date, most human-computer interactive systems have focused primarily on the graphical rendering of visual information and, to a lesser extent, on the display of auditory information. Extending the frontier of visual computing, haptic interfaces, or force feedback devices, have the potential to increase the quality of human-computer interaction by accommodating the sense of touch. They provide an attractive augmentation to visual display and enhance the level of understanding of complex data sets. They have been effectively used for a number of applications including molecular docking, manipulation of nano-materials, surgical training, virtual prototyping, and digital sculpting. Compared with visual and auditory display, haptic rendering has extremely demanding computational requirements. In order to maintain a stable system while displaying smooth and realistic forces and torques, high haptic update rates in the range of 5001000 Hz or more are typically used. Haptics present many new challenges to researchers and developers in computer graphics and interactive techniques. Some of the critical issues include the development of novel data structures to encode shape and material properties, as well as new techniques for geometry processing, data analysis, physical modeling, and haptic visualization. This synthesis examines some of the latest developments on haptic rendering, while looking forward to exciting future research in this area. It presents novel haptic rendering algorithms that take advantage of the human haptic sensory modality. Specifically it discusses different rendering techniques for various geometric representations (e.g. point-based, polygonal, multiresolution, distance fields, etc), as well as textured surfaces.




Haptics Rendering and Applications


Book Description

There has been significant progress in haptic technologies but the incorporation of haptics into virtual environments is still in its infancy. A wide range of the new society's human activities including communication, education, art, entertainment, commerce and science would forever change if we learned how to capture, manipulate and reproduce haptic sensory stimuli that are nearly indistinguishable from reality. For the field to move forward, many commercial and technological barriers need to be overcome. By rendering how objects feel through haptic technology, we communicate information that might reflect a desire to speak a physically- based language that has never been explored before. Due to constant improvement in haptics technology and increasing levels of research into and development of haptics-related algorithms, protocols and devices, there is a belief that haptics technology has a promising future.




Touch in Virtual Environments


Book Description

Haptics: The state-of-the-art in building touch-based interfaces for virtual environments. -- Key research issues: model acquisition, contact detection, force feedback, compression, capture, and collaboration. -- Understanding the role of human factors in haptic interfaces. -- Applications: medical training, telesurgery, biological and scientific interfaces, military applications, sign language, museum display, and more. Haptics -- "touch-based" interface design -- is the exciting new frontier in research on virtual and immersive environments. In Touch in Virtual Environments, the field's leading researchers bring together their most advanced work and applications. They identify the key challenges facing haptic interface developers, present today's best solutions, and outline a clear research agenda for the future. This book draws upon work first presented at the breakthrough haptics conference held recently at USC's Integrated Media Systems Center. The editors and contributors begins by reviewing key haptics applications and the challenges of effective haptic rendering, presenting new insights into model acquisition, contact detection, force feedback, compression, capture, collaboration, and other key issues. Next, they focus on the complex human factors associated with successful haptic interfaces, examining questions such as: How can we make haptic displays more usable for blind and visually impaired users? What are the differences between perceiving texture with the bare skin and with a probe? In the book's final section, several of today's leading haptic applications are introduced, including telesurgery and surgical simulation; scientific visualization.




Haptic Rendering for Simulation of Fine Manipulation


Book Description

This book introduces the latest progress in six degrees of freedom (6-DoF) haptic rendering with the focus on a new approach for simulating force/torque feedback in performing tasks that require dexterous manipulation skills. One of the major challenges in 6-DoF haptic rendering is to resolve the conflict between high speed and high fidelity requirements, especially in simulating a tool interacting with both rigid and deformable objects in a narrow space and with fine features. The book presents a configuration-based optimization approach to tackle this challenge. Addressing a key issue in many VR-based simulation systems, the book will be of particular interest to researchers and professionals in the areas of surgical simulation, rehabilitation, virtual assembly, and inspection and maintenance.




The Sense of Touch and Its Rendering


Book Description

"Sense of Touch and its Rendering" presents a unique and interdisciplinary approach highlighting the field of haptic research from a neuropsychological as well as a technological point of view. This edited book is the outcome of the TOUCH-HapSys European research project and provides an important contribution towards a new generation of high-fidelity haptic display technologies. The book is structured in two parts: A. Fundamental Psychophysical and Neuropsychological Research and B. Technology and Applications. The two parts are not however separated, and the many connections and synergies between the two complementary domains of research are highlighted in the text. The eleven chapters discuss the recent advances in the study of human haptic (kinaesthetic, tactile, temperature) and multimodal (visual, auditory, haptic) perception mechanisms. Besides the theoretical advancement, the contributions survey the state of the art in the field, report a number of practical applications to real systems, and discuss possible future developments.




Haptics Technologies


Book Description

The term “haptics” refers to the science of sensing and manipulation through touch. Multiple disciplines such as biomechanics, psychophysics, robotics, neuroscience, and software engineering converge to support haptics, and generally, haptic research is done by three communities: the robotics community, the human computer interface community, and the virtual reality community. This book is different from any other book that has looked at haptics. The authors treat haptics as a new medium rather than just a domain within one of the above areas. They describe human haptic perception and interfaces and present fundamentals in haptic rendering and modeling in virtual environments. Diverse software architectures for standalone and networked haptic systems are explained, and the authors demonstrate the vast application spectrum of this emerging technology along with its accompanying trends. The primary objective is to provide a comprehensive overview and a practical understanding of haptic technologies. An appreciation of the close relationship between the wide range of disciplines that constitute a haptic system is a key principle towards being able to build successful collaborative haptic environments. Structured as a reference to allow for fast accommodation of the issues concerned, this book is intended for researchers interested in studying touch and force feedback for use in technological multimedia systems in computer science, electrical engineering, or other related disciplines. With its novel approach, it paves the way for exploring research trends and challenges in such fields as interpersonal communication, games, or military applications.




Haptics: Neuroscience, Devices, Modeling, and Applications


Book Description

The two-volume set LNCS 8618 and 8619 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference EuroHaptics 2014, held in Versailles, France, in June 2014. The 118 papers (36 oral presentations and 82 poster presentations) presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 183 submissions. Furthermore, 27 demos were exhibited, each of them resulting in a short paper included in the volumes. These proceedings reflect the multidisciplinary nature of EuroHaptics and cover topics such as human-computer interaction, human-robot interactions, neuroscience, perception and psychophysics, biomechanics and motor control, modelling and simulation; and a broad range of applications in medicine, rehabilitation, art, and design.