The impact of feedback design in haptic volume visualization

Abstract

Enhancing volume visualization with additional cues from our sense of touch has shown the potential to increase both speed and accuracy in the data exploration. Research in the area display a wide array of modes of interaction and many of these have been evaluated to demonstrate their capabilities. There are, however, few studies performed that compare different approaches for their strengths and weaknesses and there is a lack of guidelines on how the haptic feedback should be designed to allow for best performance.This paper describes a study on the influence of the basic principle chosen for data representation on the ability to identify faint structures in the data. Three metaphors are compaired, two types of shape metaphors and one force metaphor. Based on statistical analysis on evaluation data, interviews and observations a set of guidelines on the design of haptic visualization is described.

Review of Designs for Haptic Data Visualization

“…It confirmed that adding force feedback was useful for information and guidance and contributed to the understanding of the distributed flow; they concluded that "haptic feedback was considered helpful and the combination of haptics/graphics produced a better result than using visual feedback alone" [131]. Recently, Palmerius and Forsell [132] also tested three different haptic metaphors (line, surface and force) representing volumetric vector data to identify faint structures. The experiment conducted with 12 participants showed that the line and the surface metaphors permit the user to better identify faint structures in comparison to the force metaphor.…”

“…[33]). Palmerius [132] writes on haptic interaction design saying that it is useful to "not only design the feedback to most effectively convey the information, but to convey it in an intuitive manner so not to confuse the user". In particular choosing the right hardware (haptic device) is also important and can affect the users' perception of the information.…”