Hello everyone, I’m Nianlong Li from Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences
My topic is “HapLinkage: Prototyping Haptic Proxies for Virtual Hand Tools Using Linkage Mechanism"
In virtual reality, haptic proxies take benefits of enabling users to obtain natural haptic feedback via physically touching, using and manipulating virtual objects.
Physical proxies are expected to be easy, cheap, and fast to make. They can be created ad hoc and modified through the application of various haptic mappings.
However, existing haptic proxies focus on entertainment and game domains, lack simulations of products manipulated by hand in daily life and work.
Such as the stick shift, the scissor, and the injector.
Unfortunately, designing diverse virtual hand tools usually requires expert-level knowledge of specific mechanism, for kinetic and force rendering alike.
This adds barriers for novices in creating new applications that facilitate novel interactions and rich experiences in VR.
In this paper, we present HapLinkage,
a prototyping framework that allows designers to quickly design and build haptic proxies for applications that involve virtual hand tools.
We derived a design space from 98 types of existing tools and props. And we found two meaningful attributes of hand tools. One is the motion types.
To achieve these different motions, we use the linkage machanism and provide six linkage structure templates for the rapid design of rich kinetic motions.
A linkage bar includes a snap-fit joint and a tunable mechanism for effective assembling and tuning process.
The structure can be easily modified to change a motion range by scaling it or selectively adjusting the parts.
We also provide different force profiles.
The HapLinkage framework uses an actuating module, which can be attached to one of the joints, to render forces according to users’ manipulation.
The cage structure can render haptic feedback by delicate control of its rotation according to the current angle between two associated linkage bars.
Additional vibration feedback can be generated with a linear actuator.
Our framework provides a software tool for fabricating, which was implemented as a plug-in of FreeCAD.
Users can fabricate the designed parts with 3D printing and assemble them to prototype rapidly.
We also presented some demo scenarios like fishing.
Using the scissor to cut something.
The spray bottle.
The injector.
And the stick shift
Then we conducted an expert interview.
And found that designers agreed that our framework can ease the design process and enrich their experiences in VR.
But they also found some gap existed between the physical representation and the target object. They also concerned about the durability of the parts.
Our paper has serveral limitations, some of which can be explored in the future work
We used the simple structure templates and light electronic parts, failed to reflect the tactile sensations.
We need to explore broader, practical scenarios like large objects or multiple mechanism units.
We need to evaluate the approach with structured user studies.
And we can explore to integrate VR application with prototyping.
In conclusion, we presented a prototyping framework for haptic proxy design of virtual hand tools,
it provides a set of linkage structure templates for kinetic motions;
an actuating module for managing variety of haptic profiles;
and a software tool for designing and customizing motions.
We also presented various VR scenarios for virtual hand tools created by the HapLinkage framework.
Thats all my presentations. If you have any questions, please contact my email. Thank you!