Prop-Based Haptic Interaction with Co-location and Immersion: an Automotive Application

Most research on 3D user interfaces aims at providing only a single sensory modality. One challenge is to integrate several sensory modalities into a seamless system while preserving each modality's immersion and performance factors. This paper concerns manipulation tasks and proposes a visuo-haptic system integrating immersive visualization, tactile force and tactile feedback with co-location. An industrial application is presented

Perceiving Mass in Mixed Reality through Pseudo-Haptic Rendering of Newton's Third Law

In mixed reality, real objects can be used to interact with virtual objects. However, unlike in the real world, real objects do not encounter any opposite reaction force when pushing against virtual objects. The lack of reaction force during manipulation prevents users from perceiving the mass of virtual objects. Although this could be addressed by equipping real objects with force-feedback devices, such a solution remains complex and impractical.In this work, we present a technique to produce an illusion of mass without any active force-feedback mechanism. This is achieved by simulating the effects of this reaction force in a purely visual way. A first study demonstrates that our technique indeed allows users to differentiate light virtual objects from heavy virtual objects. In addition, it shows that the illusion is immediately effective, with no prior training. In a second study, we measure the lowest mass difference (JND) that can be perceived with this technique. The effectiveness and ease of implementation of our solution provides an opportunity to enhance mixed reality interaction at no additional cost

08231 Abstracts Collection -- Virtual Realities

From 1st to 6th June 2008, the Dagstuhl Seminar 08231 ``Virtual Realities\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. Virtual Reality (VR) is a multidisciplinary area of research aimed at interactive human-computer mediated simulations of artificial environments. Typical applications include simulation, training, scientific visualization, and entertainment. An important aspect of VR-based systems is the stimulation of the human senses -- typically sight, sound, and touch -- such that a user feels a sense of presence (or immersion) in the virtual environment. Different applications require different levels of presence, with corresponding levels of realism, sensory immersion, and spatiotemporal interactive fidelity. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

Short paper : Role of force-cues in path following of 3D trajectories in Virtual Reality.

International audienceThis paper examines the effect of adding haptic force cues (simulated inertia, compensation of gravity) during 3D-path following in large immersive virtual reality environments. Thirty-four participants were asked to follow a 3D ring-on-wire trajectory. The experiment consisted of one pre-test/control bloc of twelve trials with no haptic feedback; followed by three randomized blocs of twelve trials, where force feedbacks differed. Two levels of inertia were proposed and one level compensating the effect of gravity (No-gravity). In all blocks, participants received a real time visual warning feedback (color change), related to their spatial performance. Contrariwise to several psychophysics studies, haptic force cues did not significantly change the task performance in terms of time completion or spatial distance error. The participants however significantly reduced the time passed in the visual warning zone in the presence of haptic cues. Taken together, these results are discussed from a psychophysics and multi-sensory integration point of view

Animated free-form deformation : an interactive animation technique

Projet SYNTIMRésumé disponible dans le fichier PD

S'immerger dans les mondes virtuels devient accessible au grand public

National audienceAu cours des 20 dernières années, le domaine de la réalité virtuelle a connu des progrès spectaculaires : immersion plus forte avec des capacités d'interaction plus variées et performantes. Aujourd'hui, les applications industrielles de ces recherches sont nombreuses dans le prototypage virtuel ou bien dans la simulation pour la formation. Ces technologies commencent également à pénétrer le secteur grand public avec, par exemple, l'offre de casques de réalité virtuelle permettant une immersion totale dans les univers virtuels des jeux

Pseudo-Weight: Making Tabletop Interaction with Virtual Objects More Tangible

International audienceIn this paper we show that virtual objects manipulated on a tabletop interaction device can be augmented to provide the illusion they have a weight. This weight offers a supplemental channel to provide information about graphical objects without cluttering the visual display. To create such a pseudo-weight illusion on a passive device, the pressure applied with the fingers during the interaction has to be captured. We show that this pressure can be estimated without hardware modification on some touch sensitive tabletop setups (e.g., MERL's DiamondTouch). Two controlled experiments show that pseudo-weight is perceived effectively. The first one demonstrates that users, without training and without previous knowledge of the system, can accurately rank virtual objects according to their pseudo-weights, provided they are sufficiently distinct. The second controlled experiment investigates more formally the relation between the pseudo-weight and the actual perception of the users

Vibrotactile guidance for trajectory following in computer aided surgery.

International audienceMost conventional computer-aided navigation systems assist the surgeon visually by tracking the position of an ancillary and by superposing this position into the 3D preoperative imaging exam. This paper aims at adding to such navigation systems a device that will guide the surgeon towards the target, following a complex preplanned ancillary trajectory. We propose to use tactile stimuli for such guidance, with the design of a vibrating belt. An experiment using a virtual surgery simulator in the case of skull base surgery is conducted with 9 naïve subjects, assessing the vibrotactile guidance effectiveness for complex trajectories. Comparisons between a visual guidance and a visual+tactile guidance are encouraging, supporting the relevance of such tactile guidance paradigm

A Lightweight AV System for Providing a Faithful and Spatially Manipulable Visual Hand Representation

Session: Developing new tools and technologies - Abstracts to be published in a regular issue of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking (indexed in MedLine and PsychInfo): http://online.liebertpub.com/loi/CYBERInternational audienceThis paper introduces the technical foundations of a system designed to embed a lightweight, faithful and spatially manipulable representation of the user's hand into an otherwise virtual world (aka Augmented Virtuality, AV). A highly intuitive control during pointing-like near space interaction can be provided to the user as well as a very flexible means to experimenters in a variety of non-medical and medical contexts. Our approach essentially relies on stereoscopic video seethrough Augmented Reality (AR) technology and a generic, extendible framework for managing 3D visual hand displacements. Research from human-computer interaction, perception and motor control has contributed to the elaboration of our proposal which combines a) acting in co-location, b) avoiding occlusion violations by assuring a correct scene depth ordering and c) providing a convincing visual feedback of the user's hand. We further present two cases in which this system has already successfully been used and then line out some other applications that we think are promising, for instance, in the fields of neuromotor rehabilitation and experimental neuroscience

Disassembly Task Evaluation in Virtual Reality Environment

International audienceThe influence of virtual reality (VR) on human behavior with using biomechanical analysis methods and its application for assembly/disassembly operations simulation is presented in this paper. A new haptic model for mechanical energy expenditure is proposed where the required mechanical work is used as main parameter. The fatigue levels are evaluated by analyzing the recorded electromyography (EMG) signals on the most involved muscles of operator’s arm. A set of experimental disassembly tests realized in a VR environment are performed thus allowing to validate the proposed method. The comparison of the analytical and experimental results has shown good correlation between them. The proposed method provides the feasibility to integrate human muscle fatigue into disassembly sequence evaluation via mechanical energy expenditure when performing disassembly operation simulations in the initial stage of product design