Showing papers by "Ali Israr published in 2015"

Tactile Animation by Direct Manipulation of Grid Displays

Abstract: Chairs, wearables, and handhelds have become popular sites for spatial tactile display. Visual animators, already expert in using time and space to portray motion, could readily transfer their skills to produce rich haptic sensations if given the right tools. We introduce the tactile animation object, a directly manipulated phantom tactile sensation. This abstraction has two key benefits: 1) efficient, creative, iterative control of spatiotemporal sensations, and 2) the potential to support a variety of tactile grids, including sparse displays. We present Mango, an editing tool for animators, including its rendering pipeline and perceptually-optimized interpolation algorithm for sparse vibrotactile grids. In our evaluation, professional animators found it easy to create a variety of vibrotactile patterns, with both experts and novices preferring the tactile animation object over controlling actuators individually.

FeelSleeve: Haptic Feedback to Enhance Early Reading

Abstract: Engaging children with traditional approaches in education, especially reading, grows ever more difficult in the face of their attachment to tablets and computer games. We explore the possibility of making the story reading experience more interesting and memorable for children using haptic augmentation. In this paper, we present FeelSleeve, an interface that allows children to feel story events in their hands while they are reading on a mobile device. FeelSleeve uses transducers and audio output from the tablet within a gloved attachment to create vibratory effects that are meaningfully related to story content. We describe a study investigating whether embedding such haptic feedback into stories enhances reading for six to nine year olds. Our results indicate that story events accompanied by haptic feedback are better comprehended and appear to be more salient in memory. These results provide evidence that haptic effects have the potential to improve children's reading experience and make it more memorable.

Intermanual apparent tactile motion on handheld tablets

Abstract: Handheld and wearable devices frequently engage users with simple haptic feedback, such as alerting, shaking, and pulsating. Here we explored intermanual apparent tactile motion—illusory movement between two hands—as a means to enrich such feedback. A series of psychophysical experiments determined the control space for generating smooth and consistent motion across the hands while users held the device. Experiment 1 calibrated the system and showed that vibrotactile detection thresholds decreased with increasing frequency, with similar trends for both hands. Experiment 2 measured effects of vibrotactile parameters on perceived motion. Both duration and temporal separation of stimuli, but not frequency and amplitude, affected subjective motion ratings. In Experiment 3, subjective ratings showed that stimuli with gradual onsets produced a stronger percept of motion than those with abrupt onsets. Finally, Experiment 4 determined a multimodal factor to match moving visual cues across the screen to moving tactile motion across hands. Our results showed compression of visual duration by the tactile system by a factor of approximately 1/3 at two test frequencies. The results of this research are useful for media designers and developers to generate reliable motion across the hands and integrate haptic motion with visual media.

Po2: augmented haptics for interactive gameplay

Abstract: User gestures are important in current gaming platforms, where users' movements are tracked and their actions trigger events in the games. We introduce Power of 2 (Po2), a new haptic technology that augments illusive tactile sensations on gesture-based gameplays. Po2 utilizes two vibrating actuators on two hands and renders illusory tactile motion on and across the hands. With carefully designed psychophysical studies, we determined parametric models to robustly control the perception of an illusory object and its motion on and in between two hands. These models are embedded in computer algorithms and programmed to produce cohesive multisensory experiences. Synchronized with a wide range of user gestures and interactive media, such as sound and visuals, Po2 creates highly dynamic and animated gameplay experiences with wearable and mobile handheld devices.

FeelCraft: User-Crafted Tactile Content

Abstract: Despite ongoing research into delivering haptic content, users still have no accessible way to add haptics to their experiences Lack of haptic media infrastructure, few libraries of haptic content, and individual differences all provide barriers to creating mainstream haptics In this paper, we present an architecture that supports generation of haptic content, haptic content repositories, and customization of haptic experiences We introduce FeelCraft, a software plugin that monitors activities in media and associates them with expressive tactile patterns known as feel effects The FeelCraft plugin allows end users to quickly generate haptic effects, associate them to events in the media, play them back for testing, save them, share them, and/or broadcast them to other users to feel the same haptic experience The FeelCraft architecture supports both existing and future media content, and can be applied to a wide range of social, educational, and assistive applications

Using haptic inputs to enrich story listening for young children

Abstract: Research on children's cognitive development has demonstrated the positive effects of listening to stories. However, traditional story listening is losing its appeal to other entertainment technology such as video games. Hence, there is growing interest in studying the influence of ancillary media such as sound and interactive effects, although haptic sensory input has remained relatively unexploited. We implemented a haptic vest that generates vibrotactile stimulation related to story content to augment story listening. Study 1 showed that 5- and 6-year olds, but not 4-year olds, could associate haptic effects with semantic interpretations. In Study 2, children listened to stories containing elements with or without haptic effects. The 5- and 6-year olds showed better comprehension of the haptically-signaled content in the higher-performance story. The results provide initial evidence that haptic effects can potentially enhance the reading/listening experience of children beyond 4 years.

Exploring Embedded Haptics for Social Networking and Interactions

Abstract: Haptic feedback is frequently used for user interactions with mobile devices, wearables, and handheld controllers in virtual reality and entertainment settings. We explore the use of vibrotactile (VT) feedback for social and interpersonal communication on embedded systems, particularly in a mobile context. We propose an architecture that supports compact packet communication between devices and triggers expressive VT patterns in a typical messenger application. We present a communication API, haptic vocabularies, and an interface for receiving and authoring haptic messages. Finally, we conclude with an informal survey for using haptics in a social setting.

Haptic authoring tool for animated haptic media production

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer program products to perform an operation comprising receiving input specifying one or more positional and dimensional properties of a first haptic animation object in an animation tool displaying a representation of a vibrotactile array comprising a plurality of actuators configured to output haptic feedback, computing, based on a rendering algorithm applied to the first haptic animation object, a vector profile for each of the actuators, and computing an intensity value for each of the actuators based on the vector profile of the respective actuator.

Customized haptic effects

Abstract: There is provided a system and method for producing a haptic effect. In one implementation, such a system includes a system processor, a system memory, and a haptic engine stored in the system memory. The system processor is configured to execute the haptic engine to receive a media content, to map an event contained in the media content to a predetermined haptic effect, and to display an interface enabling a system user to produce a customized haptic effect based on the predetermined haptic effect. The system processor is further configured to generate an output data for causing one of the predetermined haptic effect and the customized haptic effect to occur.