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Drawing on Air With Haptics in 3D
Roland Piquepaille writes "In a recent article, PhysOrg.com reports that a team of computer scientists at Brown University has developed 'Drawing on Air', a haptic-aided interface to help artists to create 3D illustrations while wearing a virtual reality mask. 'The technique introduces two new strategies, using one hand or two hands, to give artists the tools they need for drawing different types of curves, and for viewing and editing their work.' The researchers hope that these techniques will improve the precision with which scientists can interact with their 3D data using a computer. This also would help artists to illustrate complicated artistic, scientific, and medical subjects."
It isn't mentioned in the article, but another cool fact is that Dan Keefe wrote the back end for this using Open Source tools, including Linux servers and the G3D graphics engine (http://g3d-cpp.sf.net) that he works on.
I'd like to see the thing in action. The 3D bat looked nice, but how long did it take?
About 18 months ago, I implemented a similar mechanism in Python, using the "WorldViz" toolkit, to prototype an engineering training concept where I work. Too bad the project didn't get more funding, it was a blast.
While wearing goggles and data gloves, the user could use various hand gestures to perform different actions. You could point at virtual items, then "levitate" them to new positions. Or you could use a two-finger pointing gesture to "paint" lines in mid-air. Your other hand became a palette, and tapping the palette let you change colors. These drawings were to be saved back into a CAD format.
I also saw a group of artists made a similar system about the same time, whereby they moved a tracking wand through space to "draw" a piece of furniture. The drawing was downloaded into a 3D stereolith program, and a plastic prototype of the furniture was created. Very organic, very cool ideas.
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Like probably every gamer who ever read something about haptic interfaces, I always wondered about gaming applications. Just recently, indie developer Frictional Games announced they're adding haptic controls to their great little first-person horror adventure "Penumbra".
The neat thing here is that Penumbra is an ideal title to use the technology with. Puzzle-solving in the game is mostly physics based and you use mouse gestures (of a sort) to interact with physics objects in the game's world. Simple example: point crosshair at a filing cabinet drawer, hold down mouse button, drag mouse backwards to pull open the drawer. There's more to it than that, and maybe its a bit gimmicky, but its pretty neat nonetheless and with a haptic controller so that you could gesture in three dimensions and get some sensation of the object your virtual "hand" was interacting with... well, I'd love to give it a try anyway.
Alli
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
FWIW, IMAX has had a proprietary system like this for creating 3D stereoscopic animation since the mid-90's. It's called SANDDE (Stereo ANimation Drawing DEvice and has been used in various 3D animated films including Paint Misbehavin', Cyberworld, Falling In Love Again and Moonman. Sandde can draw individual still images but, as a tool for creating animation, is even better at creating long sequences of similar drawings using either onion-skinning or sophisticated in-betweening techniques. It is also currently used extensively in the Stereo Lab of the National Film Board of Canada and is licenced to other IMAX film production companies for projects they are working on.
Fair disclosure: I have been the project manager on SANDDE since 1993, so I am hardly impartial.
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
"Haptic" is nothing but a disgustingly pretentious way to say "tactile".
Dictionary definitions aside, in practice "haptic" and "tactile" mean different things. It's perhaps a blurry line, but in general "tactile" interfaces relies primarily on touch (an external sense), while haptic interfaces may rely on both touch and proprioception (and interoceptive sense).