Hello everyone, thank you for being here for my presentation about GamesBond:
bimanual haptic illusion of physically connected objects for immersive VR using grip deformation.
This is Neung Ryu from KAIST, and this work has been a collaboration with my great collegues,
Hye-Young Jo from KAIST, Michel Pahud and Mike Sinclair from Microsoft Research, and advised
by Professor Andrea Bianchi from KAIST. Before I start, I also wanna express great
thanks to the ACs and reviewers who helped shape and improve this work. Thank you
GamesBond is basically a pair of VR controllers that can generate the haptic illusion of a
physical connection between two grips, by bending, twisting, and stretching in the user’s hand.
In this video clip, you can see me playing with a stretchy blue bar. If you look carefully, you can
notice that the GamesBond controllers deform in my hands and match the virtual interacting object.
And it makes me feel like holding a single object with both hands.
Expanding on this simple application, here are some practical examples of everyday interactions.
For example, you can feel the dynamic feedback of a jump rope.
And you can not only feel the connection by yourself,
but also feel connected with other people.
GamesBond also has potential to render force illusion. For example, it can simulate the
compliance of the rigid bar, and also its breaking by removing the virtual connection.
Or it can render the illusion of a moving weight between two hands.
The two controllers can also provide asymmetric functionalities. While one controller renders the
sensation of reeling, the other controller simulates the pulling force of the fish.
Lastly, with GamesBond, you can feel any type of grip that is held in both hands.
It can change the configuration from separate grips, one object that has parallel grip,
or aligned grip, or any other grip variation, without any constraints and delay.
Now here’s the explanation of how it works. To achieve these illusions of connection,
the system first measures the position and orientation of each hand,
, then calculates the virtual object properties according to the hand positions.
Then move the upper segments of each controller to align with the calculated points
on the object. Through this synchronized grip deformation, user can feel the connection
There are five servos in each controller. A rack connected to the stretching servo moves
the upper segment up and down, and twisting servo rotates the upper segment directly.
In case of bending, there are three servos inside the lower segment,
and tendons connected to them bend the upper segment in the desired amount and direction.
These mechanical structure enables the controller to bend up to 30 degrees in all 360 degrees
of direction, twist from -70 degrees to 70 degrees and stretch 9mm, compress 2.5mm.
For more detail, please refer to the paper. We developed three example “bonds” to evaluate
the GamesBond for various type of connections. The rigid bond is virtual connection without
any deformation, like rod made of steel. The soft bond is flexible connection without
any dynamic response, such as gooseneck arm. The dynamic bond is another flexible connection
but has dynamic response such as inertia, hence it behaves like a rope.
To measure the influence of haptic feedback for VR experience,
we conducted two by three factorial design experiment with 12 participants,
comparing with and without haptic condition for all three bonds.
Overall, haptic feedback increased all ratings of realism, immersion, and enjoyment for all bonds.
Also, soft bond generally showed significantly higher scores than rigid bond,
implying that GamesBond device works the best when it renders flexible objects.
You can find more findings and qualitative feedbacks from the participants in our paper.
This is the end of my talk. Thank you for your attention,
and I am looking forward to see you in the QnA. Thank you