Get in Touch: New Technology Allows Users to Feel Virtual Objects

I am a big fan of 3-D movies and don’t mind paying the added price of admission to see one. Add motion seats, squirts of water or bursts of air to the viewing experience and I may never leave the theater. I recently had such an experience at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Reflecting on the experience, I wondered: Did the added 4-D sensory experience deepen my understanding of content? It certainly made it memorable. But how might I use technology to replicate this experience and design 4-D-like experiences for learners, in particular, the visual and kinesthetic ones?

Potential answer: Haptic technology

Haptic comes from the Greek verb, meaning to contact or touch. To experience your haptic capabilities, close your eyes and notice your ability to determine the position of your hands, arms, and legs without looking at them. Haptic technology refers to the science of touch in real and virtual environments. Haptic sensations are created in consumer devices by actuators, or motors, which create a vibration. (Robles-De-La-Torre, PhD, What is Haptics?)

AIREAL, a product currently in development at Disney Research Pittsburgh, is a new scalable haptic technology that enables users to feel (in their physical world) virtual 3-D objects and receive haptic feedback on gestures performed in free space. To create this augmented reality experience, the device combines interactive computer graphics with coordinated bursts of high-pressure air to create live feedback (see video below).

Imagine the possibility for increased understanding of topography when one is able to virtually fly over the world and physically feel multi-textured, changing terrains.

Potential applications of haptic technology include gaming, education and training, tele-operation in hazardous environments, medical simulation and rehabilitation and any related interactive virtual reality application. (Saddik, Orozco, Eid, Cha, 2011)

What’s more, the device is almost entirely 3D printed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaFBjUJj00M[/youtube]

The Siggraph paper is available online.

The AIREAL project is being developed at Disney Research Pittsburgh by Rajinder SodhiIvan Poupyrev, Matthew Glisson, and Ali Israr. Joanna Dauner and Alex Rothera joined the AIREAL research team for the design and production of the SIGGRAPH 2013 Emerging Technologies Installation.

 

References

Sodhi, Rajinder, Ivan Poupyrev, Matthew Glisson, and Ali Israr. AIREAL:Interactive Tactile Experiences in Free Air. Disney Research Pittsburgh, 21-25 July 2013. Web. <http://www.ivanpoupyrev.com/e-library/2013/AIREAL-SIGGRAPH2013.pdf>.

Robles-De-La-Torre, Gabriel, PhD. “What Is Haptics?” What Is Haptics? International Society for Haptics, n.d. Web. 01 Aug. 2013.

Saddik, Abdulmotaleb El, Mauricio Orozco, Mohamad Eid, and Jongeun Cha. “Haptics: General Principles.” Haptics Technologies: Bringing Touch to Multimedia. [s.l.]: Springer Berlin, 2011. N. pag. Web.