HAPTIC VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS FOR BLIND PEOPLE: EXPLORATORY EXPERIMENTS WITH TWO DEVICES

International audienceThis paper is a fusion of two independent studiesinvestigating related problems concerning the use of hapticvirtual environments for blind people: a study in Swedenusing a PHANToM 1.5 A and one in the U.K. using anImpulse Engine 3000. In general, the use of such devices isa most interesting option to provide blind people withinformation about representations of the 3D world, but therestriction at each moment to only one point of contactbetween observer and virtual object might decrease theireffectiveness. The studies investigated the perception ofvirtual textures, the identification of virtual objects and theperception of their size and angles. Both sighted(blindfolded in one study) and blind people served asparticipants. It was found (1) that the PHANToM caneffectively render textures in the form of sandpapers andsimple 3D geometric forms and (2) that the Impulse Enginecan effectively render textures consisting of groovedsurfaces, as well as 3D objects, properties of which were,however, judged with some over- or underestimation. Whenblind and sighted participants’ performance was compareddifferences were found that deserves further attention. Ingeneral, the haptic devices studied have demonstrated thegreat potential of force feedback devices in renderingrelatively simple environments, in spite of the restrictedways they allow for exploring the virtual world. The resultshighly motivate further studies of their effectiveness,especially in more complex contexts