RoboHapalytics: A Robot Assisted Haptic Controller for Immersive Analytics

Abstract

Fig. 1. Use Cases of the dynamic slider system: a time-series chart selector (left top and left bottom); a 3D medical image sectioning tool; and a time-varying scatter plot (middle top and middle bottom) (right top and right bottom)

Precise Embodied Data Selection with Haptic Feedback while Retaining Room-Scale Visualisation Context

“…Despite existing research showing the enhancement brought by haptic feedback for interaction in VR [30,40,50],…”

“…A variety of active devices have been explored by researchers, such as drones [1,97], desk robot [40] or other customised devices [83]. Our system is based on a robot-arm to precisely place haptic proxies with provide firm resistance [7,30,37,61,86]. Most existing research with encountered-type haptics focus on providing a similar interaction experience to interacting with a physical object.…”

“…The effect of haptic feedback has been evaluated in several research projects and the results seem to indicate that haptic feedback improves presence in the immersive experience, or the feeling of "being there" during interaction [7,40,61]. As encountered haptics has also been found to benefit precise interaction (e. g., [30]), we study whether they can assist users in a selection task of remote targets for large three-dimensional datasets and therefore improve multimodal feedback [34]…”

“…By limiting the position of the entrance portal, we also restrict the interaction area. This limitation allows us to employ a relatively small robot arm to provide encountered haptic feedback, as many research has shown its promise in enhancing precise interaction in VR [30]. We aim to examine whether the encountered haptic feedback in this unconventional interaction scenario, involving distant selection by hand, can enhance the interaction experience and also convincingly simulate the experience of having an extended arm.…”

“…To ensure precise positioning for haptic feedback and to facilitate interaction with data points in the visualisation, we have incorporated a UR3 robotic arm with a 3D printed sphere attached to its end effector as the tangible representation of data points. Our communication setup and position matching methodology following the same as those employed in RoboHaplytics [30]. The coordination between the VICON system and the robot's operating system is synchronised within Unity to achieve precise position control.…”