Temporal perception of visual-haptic events in multimodal telepresence system

Book synopsis: Haptic interfaces are divided into two main categories: force feedback and tactile. Force feedback interfaces are used to explore and modify remote/virtual objects in three physical dimensions in applications including computer-aided design, computer-assisted surgery, and computer-aided assembly. Tactile interfaces deal with surface properties such as roughness, smoothness, and temperature. Haptic research is intrinsically multi-disciplinary, incorporating computer science/engineering, control, robotics, psychophysics, and human motor control. By extending the scope of research in haptics, advances can be achieved in existing applications such as computer-aided design (CAD), tele-surgery, rehabilitation, scientific visualization, robot-assisted surgery, authentication, and graphical user interfaces (GUI), to name a few. Advances in Haptics presents a number of recent contributions to the field of haptics. Authors from around the world present the results of their research on various issues in the field of haptics

Perception of delay in haptic telepresence systems

Time delay is recognized as an important issue in haptic telepresence systems as it is inherent to long-distance data transmission. What factors influence haptic delay perception in a time-delayed environment are, however, largely unknown. In this article, we examine the impact of manual movement frequency and amplitude in a sinusoidal exploratory movement as well as the stiffness of the haptic environment on the detection threshold for delay in haptic feedback. The results suggest that the detection of delay in force feedback depends on the movement frequency and amplitude, while variation of the absolute feedback force level does not influence the detection threshold. A model based on the exploration movement is proposed and guidelines for system design with respect to the time delay in haptic feedback are provided

Analysis domain model for shared virtual environments

The field of shared virtual environments, which also encompasses online games and social 3D environments, has a system landscape consisting of multiple solutions that share great functional overlap. However, there is little system interoperability between the different solutions. A shared virtual environment has an associated problem domain that is highly complex raising difficult challenges to the development process, starting with the architectural design of the underlying system. This paper has two main contributions. The first contribution is a broad domain analysis of shared virtual environments, which enables developers to have a better understanding of the whole rather than the part(s). The second contribution is a reference domain model for discussing and describing solutions - the Analysis Domain Model

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Haptics: Science, Technology, Applications

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human Haptic Sensing and Touch Enabled Computer Applications, EuroHaptics 2020, held in Leiden, The Netherlands, in September 2020. The 60 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 111 submissions. The were organized in topical sections on haptic science, haptic technology, and haptic applications. This year's focus is on accessibility

Haptics: Science, Technology, Applications

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human Haptic Sensing and Touch Enabled Computer Applications, EuroHaptics 2020, held in Leiden, The Netherlands, in September 2020. The 60 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 111 submissions. The were organized in topical sections on haptic science, haptic technology, and haptic applications. This year's focus is on accessibility

A modelling and networking architecture for distributed virtual environments with multiple servers.

Virtual Environments (VEs) attempt to give people the illusion of immersion that they are in a computer generated world. VEs allow people to actively participate in a synthetic environment. They range from a single-person running on a single computer, to multiple-people running on several computers connected through a network. When VEs are distributed on multiple computers across a network, we call this a Distributed Virtual Environment (DVE). Virtual Environments can benefit greatly from distributed strategies.A networked VE system based on the Client-Server model is the most commonly used paradigm in constructing DVE systems. In a Client-Server model, data can be distributed on several server computers. The server computers provide services to their own clients via networks. In some client-server models, however, a powerful server is required, or it will become a bottleneck. To reduce the amount of data and traffic maintained by a single server, the servers themselves can be distributed, and the virtual environment can be divided over a network of servers.The system described in this thesis, therefore, is based on the client-server model with multiple servers. This grouping is called a Distributed Virtual Environment System with Multiple- Servers (DVM). A DVM system shows a new paradigm of distributed virtual environments based on shared 3D synthetic environments. A variety of network elements are required to support large scale DVM systems. The network is currently the most constrained resource of the DVM system. Development of networking architectures is the key to solving the DVM challenge. Therefore, a networking architecture for implementing a DVM model is proposed. Finally, a DVM prototype system is described to demonstrate the validity of the modelling and network architecture of a DVM model