Implementation of 3D visualization aplications based on physical-haptics principles to perform rehabilitation tasks

Nowadays, There are a lot of tools and procedures for the development of computer applications for teaching, entertainment, telecommunications, marketing, design and other more. This paper present a implementation method for developing applications based on virtual reality and procedures physical-haptics, in order to perform rehabilitation tasks, describing the used software tools. The first one is Ogre3D which is used as rendering graphics engine to add realistic 3D visualization features. Then, the physical engine NVIDIA PhysX is used to incorporate accurate physics simulation and to implement collision detection between objects in the virtual environment. The third one is OpenHaptics which is used to generate a force feedback in the haptic device Sensable Phantom. Using the developed applications, the user´s immersion sense in the virtual environment is increased and improved, since the user can manipulate virtual objects with realistic physical behaviour. Finally, two examples of implementation in a rehabilitation environment are shown to demonstrate the main features of the developed tool.