Assessment of surface rendering with 1 DoF vibration

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the creation and testing of a prototype device for rendering texture, using a touch-sensitive surface consisting of a linear soft potentiometer (LSP) attached to a 3D-printed platform and mounted on the cone of a 5-inch loudspeaker. Displacement of the cone is determined by finger position along the LSP. The roughness quality of rendered textures was evaluated psychophysically: A magnitude-estimation task measured how changes in the amplitude and spatial frequency of the rendered texture translated into perceptual change. A just-noticeable difference (JND) task measured the threshold for detection of change in amplitude or frequency, proportional to a base value. Magnitude estimation demonstrated sensitivity to both variables across the physical scales presented, but with stronger effects for amplitude: A doubling of frequency led to an approximate doubling of reported magnitude, whereas a 60% increase in amplitude led to an 86% increase in magnitude. The amplitude thresholds averaged 24%, whereas the frequency thresholds were substantially higher, averaging 64% but with substantial inter-participant variability. We conclude that the device has promise for conveying a broad range of vibratory effects and hence may simulate textural variations, but additional research is necessary to further its capabilities for differentiating vibrations close in frequency.

KEYWORDS:

• Haptic rendering
• virtual reality
• psychophysics
• texture

Acknowledgments

Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Center for Medical Innovation, University of Pittsburgh [F_262-2019]; National Science Foundation [IIS-1518630].

Notes on contributors

Oliver Snyder

Oliver Snyder received his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2018 and is currently a 3rd year medical student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.  He is currently conducting research in haptic devices for surgery in the Visualization and Image Analysis Laboratory in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

Rebeka Almasi

Rebeka Almasi is a first-year Ph.D. student at the George Washington University in the Cognitive Neuroscience area. She has a B.S. in Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon University. With previous experience researching face perception, PCA stroke, attention, and haptics, her current interests lie in the mechanisms of interactions between perception, cognition, and affect.

Cathy Fang

Mengying (Cathy) Fang graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in May 2020 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction with University and College Honors. She is currently a research associate at the Future Interfaces Group at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. She received Best Paper recognition from the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2020. Her research focuses on designing new forms of interaction techniques combining Mixed Reality with wearable devices.

Roberta L. Klatzky

Roberta L. Klatzky received the Ph.D. degree in cognitive psychology from Stanford University. She is the Charles J. Queenan, Jr. University Professorat Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, where she is a member of the Dept. of Psychology, HumanComputer Interaction Institute, and Neuroscience Institute. Her research interests include human perception and cognition, with special emphasis on spatial cognition and haptic perception. Her honors include election as a Member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.

George Stetten

George Stettenearned an A.B. in Engineering and Applied Physics from Harvard in 1976, an M.S. in Biology from NYU in 1986, an M.D. from the SUNY Syracuse in 1991, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from UNC, Chapel Hill in 1999. He is Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh and Research Professor at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute. He directs the Visualization and Image Analysis Laboratory and is a fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.