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Levitating Haptics Joystick Gives Good Feedback
SubComdrTaco writes "A controller developed at Carnegie Mellon University allows computer users to
manipulate three-dimensional images and explore virtual environments not only through sight and sound, but by using their sense of touch. It simulates a hand's responses to touch because it relies on a part that floats in a magnetic field rather than on mechanical linkages and cables, according to Ralph L. Hollis, a Carnegie Mellon professor who developed the controller.
The controller — like a joystick topped with a block that can be grasped — has just one moving part and rests in a bowl-like structure connected to a computer. Two of the controllers can be used simultaneously to pick up and move virtual objects on a monitor.
In a demonstration Tuesday, visitors to Hollis' lab were invited to move an image of a pin across a plate of various textures, causing the controller to bump along ripples, vibrate across fine striations and glide across smooth areas.
On one computer, users could "feel" the contours of a virtual rabbit.
Hollis said his researchers had built 10 of the devices, six of which were to be sent to other universities across the country and in Canada, and that a new company, Butterfly Haptics, would begin marketing the device in June or July.
The controller, which Hollis said will cost "much less" than $50,000, could enable a would-be surgeon to operate on a virtual human organ and sense the texture of tissue or give a designer the feeling of fitting a part into a virtual jet engine, or might also be used to convey the feeling of wind under the wings of unmanned military planes."
"Levitating Haptics Joystick Gives Good Feedback"
This has got to be the dirtiest headline Slashdot has ever written.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Well gee, that provides a lot of information.
Now I have hopes of only having to sell my car.
The controller, which Hollis said will cost "much less" than $50,000, could enable a would-be surgeon to operate on a virtual human organ and sense the texture of tissue
Let's get a bunch of complaints out of the way right now and point out the obvious: that such virtual surgery would only be an educational tool and would, for obvious reasons, be completely unsuitable as a "telecommuting surgeon" solution.
My visualisation lecturer brought one of these into the lecture last week: http://home.novint.com/products/watch_demo.php
I had a go, it was pretty cool. He'd just installed Vista on his laptop and the software wouldn't run at full speed any more (surprise!) so he could only demonstrate touching a sphere of material, but it was good. There was a sphere of molasses, which really did feel gooey, and one of ice, which was slippery. There were others, but I didn't try them.
I don't know about surgery, but magnetic feedback is far easier to tune than spring feedback. It'd make a great videogame controller, though it could fall short for the same reason spring-based feedback isn't in current controllers: patents.
Some medical device company owns a force-feedback patent and sued or threatened all of the original FF joystick makers in the 90's. The only feedback we have now is vibration, which may be exciting for 51% of the population, but seems kinda lame to me. Oh, and isn't there a patent covering it as well? Lame.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
From the article:
I think we all know that this is a euphemism for pornography
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Possibly, but they'd have done better to just quote the article:
Somehow, I think this will have porn applications...
Professor Ralph Hollis now joins Hugh Hefner in being the only men in the world who make a living from feeling up bunnies.
Blank until
Also, Immersion technologies make Haptic controllers (BMW contol wheel, XBOX Steering Wheel, Vibration in the PS3 - which, Sony claimed couldn't fit into their controller but it was a patent problem - Immersion sued Sony & won... now the PS3 has vibration). They also make haptic stuff for surgery simulations. Carnegie Melon be jealous...
I used one at quakecon, and honestly, I hated it. I honestly don't understand how anyone can describe using this thing as feeling anything. It reacted to surfaces and objects in the demos like you would expect it to react, but it wasn't feeling. It was clunky and awkward, to say the least. It was more like taking a stick and moving it along something. Just figured I would share my experiance with the device.
The linked video is from 1998.
I've seen several gadgets like this at SIGGRAPH, although not this "maglev" version. There are better haptic input devices, which are more like robot arms in reverse.
Cancer? What is it about magnetic fields you think can cause cancer?
You know that every time you open your fridge, there's a changing magnetic field beneath your hand.
In broad terms, the only forms of radiation that can cause cancer are ionizing radiation. That means that individual photons can break a bond between two atoms. The reason this can cause cancer is that you can break a bond within a DNA strand which could be repaired incorrectly by the cell in such a way that it looses control over itself.
So starting from lowest energy and going up.
Electric fields and magnetic fields (or RF waves) can't cause cancer.
Infrared waves (heat) can't cause cancer
Microwaves (cellphones) can't cause cancer
Visible light can't cause cancer
Ultra Violet rays are slightly ionizing, and can cause cancer
x-rays and gamma rays can cause cancer
There's an exception to this. If you made a substantial change in an electric or magnetic field in under 10^-16 seconds, then you would emit some UV rays. This isn't something we're capable of doing without some sort of cathode ray tube. (not used in this device)
What worries me about this is the reverse of this. If a little wand can resist a 40N force, a miscalculation in the simulation software could presumably easily apply a 40N force to a joint which shouldn't have 40N applied to it...
Especially if the evolution of this device is to make it bigger/more immersive.
I can see it now:
Script kiddie 1: I hax0red your Box and deleted your pronz lol!
Script kiddie 2: Well I hax0red your Box, enjoy your broken arm.
It's somewhat frustrating that a lot of possibly cool consumer goodies are ruined by their potential to kill/injure the user. If only humanity wouldn't inevitably find the way to damage themselves.
Or, we could blame everything on gravity. The same reasoning can conveniently be extended to any number of imagined causes. ;)