Perception of Spatialized Vibrotactile Impacts in a Hand-Held Tangible for Virtual Reality

Abstract

Informative and realistic haptic feedback significantly enhances virtual reality (VR) manipulation. In particular, vibrotactile feedback (VF) can deliver diverse haptic sensations while remaining relatively simple. This has made it a go-to solution for haptics within hand-held controllers and tangible props for VR. However, VF in hand-helds has solely focused on monolithic vibration of the entire hand-held device. Thus, it is not clear to what extent such hand-held devices could support the delivery of spatialized information within the hand. In this paper, we consider a tangible cylindrical handle that allows interaction with virtual objects extending beyond it. This handle is fitted with a pair of vibrotactile actuators with the objective of providing in-hand spatialized cues indicating direction and distance of impacts. We evaluated its capability for rendering spatialized impacts with external virtual objects. Results show that it performs very well for conveying an impact’s direction and moderately well for conveying an impact’s distance to the user.

Does Multi-Actuator Vibrotactile Feedback Within Tangible Objects Enrich VR Manipulation?

“…However, localized vibrotactile feedback has been shown effective in conveying spatial information when used in wearable [34], [37], [38] and surface [39] haptics. Cabaret et al embedded vibrotactors in a tangible object in VR, focusing on VF for virtual impacts occurring outside the hand [33]. This motivates our investigation into additional possibilities provided by localized VF to modulate the perceived properties of freely manipulated tangible objects.…”

“…Incorporating vibrotactors into tangible objects to widen the scope of interaction is a concept that has extensively been explored e.g., in tangible user interfaces (TUI) [31], [32] but less so in VR. Here, similarly to recent work by Cabaret et al [33], we propose to apply this idea to VR and to explore potential benefits to interaction. Vibrotactile feedback in graspable devices in VR has thus far been limited to monolithic vibrotactile feedback (i.e.…”

Haptic Feedback, Performance and Arousal: A Comparison Study in an Immersive VR Motor Skill Training Task

“…Figure 1 shows the custom handle designed to provide vibrotactile sensations about the (undesired) contacts between the loop and the wire, according to the feedback condition at hand. It is shaped as an ellipsoid and houses six vibrotactile modules, inspired from [39], [40]. The vibrotactile modules are positioned around the handle: four are placed symmetrically around the plane perpendicular to the main axis, and two are placed at the ends of the main axis (see Fig.…”

MultiVibes: What if your VR Controller had 10 Times more Vibrotactile Actuators?

“…Yet, tactile feedback can be enhanced using multiple actuators to provide spatial feedback and leverage haptic illusions, such as saltation or funneling effects. Several works have started to explore such solutions [10,11,13,25,31]. Some have kept the shape of controllers with cylindrical prototypes [13,25,31] but none implemented spatialized models that allow active interaction with VR environments.…”

“…Some have kept the shape of controllers with cylindrical prototypes [13,25,31] but none implemented spatialized models that allow active interaction with VR environments. As Cabaret et al [11] put it, current VR controllers offer "monolithic vibration of the entire hand-held device", while some research prototypes can be technologically complex for commercial purposes in the short term. Thus, there is room for improving existing VR controllers by enriching simple technologies, like vibrotactile feedback, using multiple actuators and making use of haptic illusions.…”