Toward Haptic Perception of Objects in a Visual and Depth Guided Navigation

This paper investigates the limits of vibrato tactile haptic feedback when interacting with 3D virtual scenes. In this study, the spatial locations of the objects are mapped to the work-volume of the user using a Kinect sensor. In addition, the location of the hand of the user is determined using marker-based visual processing. The depth information is used to build a vibrotactile map on a finger of a haptic glove enhanced with vibrating actuators. The users can perceive the locations and dimensions of remote objects by moving their hand inside a scanning region. A marker detection imaging can provide the location and orientation of the user hand (glove). In order to map the corresponding tactile message. A user study was conducted to explore how different users can perceive such haptic experience. Factors like total number of detected objects, object separation spatial resolution, dimension-based and shape-based discrimination were evaluated. The preliminary results in a group of untrained users of different ages and backgrounds showed that the localization and counting of objects can be attained with a high degree of success. All users were able to classify groups of objects based on different dimensions (height, width, deep) and the perception of total volume. However, shape recognition proved to be a challenge for the majority of the users using the current configuration of the haptic glove.