Bringing haptics and physical simulation together: haptic travel through physical worlds

Abstract

This paper describes our efforts in bringing haptics closer to current dynamic virtual environments (VE). These interactive 3D worlds make more and more use of physical simulations in order to increase realism. As a first step in closing the gap, we propose haptic travel that allows users to feel how their virtual representation navigates through the simulated world. In this work, we show how we coupled stable haptic rendering to physical simulation in order to achieve this. By generating a force feedback field, based on the user's input in combination with collision information provided by a rigid body simulator, we managed to provide the user with useful information on what is happening to its virtual representation. A humanoid animated character, which represents the user, is coupled to the rigid body object that represents the user in physical space. This character is animated according to the travel motions that the physical object makes, depending on user input from the haptic device. Our approach is suitable for a whole set of applications and input devices and can reduce the number of devices necessary to interact in VEs.

Development of a Physics-Based Target Shooting Game to Train Amputee Users of Multijoint Upper Limb Prostheses

“…The overall loop latency for the game showed that the complex computations and rendering in the target shooting game can be simulated at real-time rates that are significantly higher than the minimum update rates of 20-25 Hz for closed-loop virtual training with visual feedback (Jorissen, Boeck, & Lamotte, 2006;Nichols, 1999). These update rates leave a large block of time for other application-specific processes such as the acquisition and processing of the neural command data.…”