Towards Perceptually Realistic Haptic Rendering of Virtual Textures

In order to evaluate the quality of virtual haptic textures, we proposed the concept of perceived instability that describes any sensation that can not be attributed to the virtual textures being explored by a user. Our work has shown that the parameter space for perceptually stable haptic texture rendering is quite limited and not useful for most applications. There are three types of commonly-encountered perceived instability: buzzing, aliveness and ridge instability. Further research has revealed that buzzing (a high-frequency vibration) is most likely caused by the structural resonance of the haptic interface used to display forces. Aliveness (A pulsating sensation such that the virtual textured surfaces seem to be moving on their own) is due to a discrepancy in our ability to detect changes in hand position and in force. It can occur when the haptic rendering system is passive and therefore stable in the control sense. Ridge instability (a phenomenon where the stylus is being actively pushed into the valley of texture models) is the result of simplified physical modeling of the environment, in this case the lack of friction in the texture model. Recently, we have shown that the parameter space for haptic texture rendering can be greatly increased by using a haptic update rate in the range 3-6 kHz. Our work provides an approach for evaluating and enhancing virtual haptic environments from a user's perspective.


Project Publications


Seungmoon Choi and Hong Z. Tan, "Toward realistic rendering of haptic textures," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (Special Issue - Haptic Rendering Beyond Visual Computing), pp. 40-47, March/April 2004. PDF (557KB)

Seungmoon Choi and Hong Z. Tan, "Perceived instability of virtual haptic texture. I. Experimental studies," Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. (pages), 2004.

Seungmoon Choi and Hong Z. Tan, "An experimental study of perceived instability during haptic texture rendering: Effects of collision detection algorithm," Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, IEEE Computer Society, Los Angeles, LA, Mar. 22-23, pp. 197-204, 2003. PDF (353KB)

Seungmoon Choi and Hong Z. Tan, "Aliveness: Perceived instability from a passive haptic texture rendering system," Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems(IROS2003), Las Vegas, NV, pp. 2678-2683, 2003. PDF (779KB)

Seungmoon Choi and Hong Z. Tan, "A study on the sources of perceptual instability during haptic texture rendering," Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2002), Washington, D.C., May 11-15, pp. 1261-1268, 2002. PDF (850KB)

Seungmoon Choi and Hong Z. Tan, "An analysis of perceptual instability during haptic texture rendering," In Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, IEEE Computer Society, Orlando, FL, pp. 129-136,2002. PDF (317KB)