Synergistic visual/haptic rendering modes for scientific visualization

Our approach uses a visual/haptic interface to display scientific data both graphically and haptically. The haptic interface provides a natural means of interacting with the data through direct tactile sensing and manipulation of the data display. Our experience with this interface suggests that users understand the data more clearly when the haptic component acts as a synergistic companion to the visual display. That is, rather than replace the visual display of data or display disparate data haptically, the haptic component reinforces and clarifies visual information via compatible haptic data rendering.