Importance of Matching Physical Friction, Hardness, and Texture in Creating Realistic Haptic Virtual Surfaces

Interacting with physical objects through a tool elicits tactile and kinesthetic sensations that comprise your haptic impression of the object. These cues, however, are largely missing from interactions with virtual objects, yielding an unrealistic user experience. This article evaluates the realism...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on haptics 2017-01, Vol.10 (1), p.63-74
Main Authors: Culbertson, Heather, Kuchenbecker, Katherine J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Computer Simulation
data-driven modeling
Female
force feedback
Friction
Haptic interfaces
haptic texture rendering
Hardness
high-frequency vibrations
Humans
Male
Mechanical properties
Models, Theoretical
Object recognition
Physical Stimulation
Realism
Rendering
Rendering (computer graphics)
Robotics - methods
Rough surfaces
Surface layers
Surface Properties
Surface roughness
Surface texture
Texture
Touch
Touch - physiology
User interfaces
User-Computer Interface
Vibration
Vibrations
Virtual reality
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Summary:Interacting with physical objects through a tool elicits tactile and kinesthetic sensations that comprise your haptic impression of the object. These cues, however, are largely missing from interactions with virtual objects, yielding an unrealistic user experience. This article evaluates the realism of virtual surfaces rendered using haptic models constructed from data recorded during interactions with real surfaces. The models include three components: surface friction, tapping transients, and texture vibrations. We render the virtual surfaces on a SensAble Phantom Omni haptic interface augmented with a Tactile Labs Haptuator for vibration output. We conducted a human-subject study to assess the realism of these virtual surfaces and the importance of the three model components. Following a perceptual discrepancy paradigm, subjects compared each of 15 real surfaces to a full rendering of the same surface plus versions missing each model component. The realism improvement achieved by including friction, tapping, or texture in the rendering was found to directly relate to the intensity of the surface's property in that domain (slipperiness, hardness, or roughness). A subsequent analysis of forces and vibrations measured during interactions with virtual surfaces indicated that the Omni's inherent mechanical properties corrupted the user's haptic experience, decreasing realism of the virtual surface.
ISSN:1939-1412
2329-4051
DOI:10.1109/TOH.2016.2598751