Integrating Force and Tactile Rendering Into a Single VR System

The EU funded RTD project "HAPTEX" addresses the challenge of developing a Virtual Reality (VR) system for the realistic and accurate rendering of the physical interactions of humans with textiles, through the real-time generation of artificial visual and haptic stimuli. This challenge concerns the development of both the SW and the HW components of the VR system, as well as it implies a substantial advancement in the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the human haptic perception of fine physical properties like those of textiles. This paper reports some important details relating to the technical implementation of the developed HW and SW components with special emphasis on the issues related to their integration into a single VR system. Furthermore some preliminary results relating to the functional tests carried out on the integrated system are also reported.