Evaluation of Presence in Virtual Environments: Haptic Vest and User's Haptic Skills

This paper presents the integration of a haptic vest with a multimodal virtual environment, consisting of video, audio, and haptic feedback, with the main objective of determining how users, who interact with the virtual environment, benefit from tactile and thermal stimuli provided by the haptic vest. Some experiments are performed using a game application of a train station after an explosion. The participants of this experiment have to move inside the environment, while receiving several stimuli to check if any improvement in presence or realism in that environment is reflected on the vest. This is done by comparing the experimental results with those similar scenarios, obtained without haptic feedback. These experiments are carried out by three groups of participants who are classified on the basis of their experience in haptics and virtual reality devices. Some differences among the groups have been found, which can be related to the levels of realism and synchronization of all the elements in the multimodal environment that fulfill the expectations and maximum satisfaction level. According to the participants in the experiment, two different levels of requirements are to be defined by the system to comply with the expectations of professional and conventional users

VISIO-HAPTIC DEFORMABLE MODEL FOR HAPTIC DOMINANT PALPATION SIMULATOR

Vision and haptic are two most important modalities in a medical simulation. While visual cues assist one to see his actions when performing a medical procedure, haptic cues enable feeling the object being manipulated during the interaction. Despite their importance in a computer simulation, the combination of both modalities has not been adequately assessed, especially that in a haptic dominant environment. Thus, resulting in poor emphasis in resource allocation management in terms of effort spent in rendering the two modalities for simulators with realistic real-time interactions. Addressing this problem requires an investigation on whether a single modality (haptic) or a combination of both visual and haptic could be better for learning skills in a haptic dominant environment such as in a palpation simulator. However, before such an investigation could take place one main technical implementation issue in visio-haptic rendering needs to be addresse

ISMCR 1994: Topical Workshop on Virtual Reality. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Measurement and Control in Robotics

This symposium on measurement and control in robotics included sessions on: (1) rendering, including tactile perception and applied virtual reality; (2) applications in simulated medical procedures and telerobotics; (3) tracking sensors in a virtual environment; (4) displays for virtual reality applications; (5) sensory feedback including a virtual environment application with partial gravity simulation; and (6) applications in education, entertainment, technical writing, and animation

How to Build an Embodiment Lab: Achieving Body Representation Illusions in Virtual Reality

Advances in computer graphics algorithms and virtual reality (VR) systems, together with the reduction in cost of associated equipment, have led scientists to consider VR as a useful tool for conducting experimental studies in fields such as neuroscience and experimental psychology. In particular virtual body ownership, where the feeling of ownership over a virtual body is elicited in the participant, has become a useful tool in the study of body representation, in cognitive neuroscience and psychology, concerned with how the brain represents the body. Although VR has been shown to be a useful tool for exploring body ownership illusions, integrating the various technologies necessary for such a system can be daunting. In this paper we discuss the technical infrastructure necessary to achieve virtual embodiment. We describe a basic VR system and how it may be used for this purpose, and then extend this system with the introduction of real-time motion capture, a simple haptics system and the integration of physiological and brain electrical activity recordings

Taking an Extended Embodied Perspective of Touch: Connection-Disconnection in iVR

Bringing touch into VR experiences through haptics is considered increasingly important for user engagement and fostering feelings of presence and immersion, yet few qualitative studies have explored users' iVR touch experiences. This paper takes an embodied approach–bringing attention to the tactile-kinaesthetic body–to explore users' wholistic experiences of touch in iVR, moving beyond the cutaneous and tactile elements of “feeling” to elaborate upon themes of movement and kinetics. Our findings show how both touch connections and disconnections emerged though material forms of tactility (the controller, body positioning, tactile expectations) and through “felt proximities” and the tactile-kinaesthetic experience thus shaping the sense of presence. The analysis shows three key factors that influence connection and disconnection, and how connection is re-navigated or sought at moments of experienced disconnection: a sense of control or agency; identity; and bridging between the material and virtual. This extended notion of touch deepens our understanding of its role in feelings of presence by providing insight into a range of factors related to notions of touch – both physical and virtual–that come into play in creating a sense of connection or presence (e.g., histories, expectations), and highlights the potential for iVR interaction to attend to the body beyond the hands in terms of touch

Collaborative Virtual Environments for Ergonomics: Embedding the Design Engineer Role in the Loop

International audienceThe aim of this paper is to define the role and duties of a design engineer involved in a collaborative ergonomic design session supported by a 3D collaborative virtual environment. For example, such a session can be used to adapt the manual task an operator must achieve in the context of an industrial assembly line. We first present the interest of such collaborative sessions. Then we present a related work explaining the need of proper 3DCVE and metaphors to obtain efficient collaborative ergonomic design sessions. Then, after a short definition of the role of the engineer in such sessions, we propose a use case highlighting the type of metaphor such engineers need to have to be efficient in such a framework. Discussion and future works ends the paper

Virtual reality for safe testing and development in collaborative robotics: challenges and perspectives

Collaborative robots (cobots) could help humans in tasks that are mundane, dangerous or where direct human contact carries risk. Yet, the collaboration between humans and robots is severely limited by the aspects of the safety and comfort of human operators. In this paper, we outline the use of extended reality (XR) as a way to test and develop collaboration with robots. We focus on virtual reality (VR) in simulating collaboration scenarios and the use of cobot digital twins. This is specifically useful in situations that are difficult or even impossible to safely test in real life, such as dangerous scenarios. We describe using XR simulations as a means to evaluate collaboration with robots without putting humans at harm. We show how an XR setting enables combining human behavioral data, subjective self-reports, and biosignals signifying human comfort, stress and cognitive load during collaboration. Several works demonstrate XR can be used to train human operators and provide them with augmented reality (AR) interfaces to enhance their performance with robots. We also provide a first attempt at what could become the basis for a human–robot collaboration testing framework, specifically for designing and testing factors affecting human–robot collaboration. The use of XR has the potential to change the way we design and test cobots, and train cobot operators, in a range of applications: from industry, through healthcare, to space operations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio