In-situ authoring with posture-adaptive haptic rendering algorithm for virtual reality

Abstract

The emergence of vibrotactile feedback-embedded hand wearables enables immersive virtual reality(VR) experience. However, the haptic design process still lags behind its visual counterparts in terms of design freedom and scalability. In response, we present an in-situ haptic experience design for hand wearables in VR. Our system supports design freedom by allowing haptic designers to directly draw haptic traces on the hand to author vibrotactile feedback, requiring no controllers during the process. It enables a user-friendly and accessible haptic design process for VR hand interactions. We propose a new concept called phantom grid which enables a posture-adaptive haptic rendering algorithm that creates consistent haptic feedback throughout distinctive hand postures. Moreover, we incorporate multiple phantom sensation techniques to cover haptic feedback over the whole hand. We quantify the perceptual performance of our approach with multiple user studies with qualitative feedback. We also demonstrate applications showing how our method supports an intuitive, empowering, and responsive haptic authoring framework.