[Poster] A preliminary study on altering surface softness perception using augmented color and deformation

Choosing the appropriate soft/hard material is important for designing a product such as sofa or bed, but typically limited by the number of physical materials that the designer owns. Pseudo-haptic feedback is an alternative way that enables designer to roughly simulate material properties (e.g., softness, hardness) by only generating the visual illusion. However, the current technique is limited within video see-through augmented reality, in which the user interact in a real space while looking at a virtual space. This paper explores the possibility to realize pseudo-haptic feedback for touching objects in spatial augmented reality. We investigate and compare effects of visually superimposing a projection graphics onto the surface of a touched object and the fingernail/finger for changing the surface tactile perception. The potential of our method is discussed through a preliminary user study.