NET API Wrapping for Existing C++ Haptic APIs

For a long time haptic devices were expensive and therefore only accessible to a specialized community. But with companies like Novint Technologies introducing a peripheral intended to sell for about US$100, haptic devices can be expected to be affordable for a wider public. But considering that most haptic APIs are in C++, a language intended for expert programmers, novice programmers wanting to program haptic devices would face a steep learning curve. However, if the APIs were to be usable from within the .NET framework, it would allow the more novice users to program using over 20 programming languages and extensive programming solutions and therefore they would be able to easily and efficiently develop software with haptic capabilities. This paper presents a set of guidelines for a design architecture that would allow migrating an existing C++ API to the .NET framework without having to rewrite it from scratch. The presented architecture was implemented by wrapping the Sensable Ghost SDK 3.0. It was then used in both software and hardware based scenarios