Development of a haptic virtual environment

Haptics is a technology that creates a sense of touch in a multi-modal media. The availability of force feedback, haptics, requires the formation of haptic virtual objects. To aid in the creation of the haptic objects we have developed G₂H, an interface between a commercial graphics and animation software package and the PHANToM haptic device. G₂H is a modifier type plug-in that can be applied to any virtual object (created or imported). Application of the modifier converts objects into haptic objects. The objects can then be immediately touched with the haptic device in a number of configurable view-ports provided by the graphics software. G₂H also allows the dynamic changing of haptic object properties, such as stiffness and static and dynamic friction A physical medical model is used to develop haptic virtual 3D objects on a PC/NT platform. A commercially available digitizer and the graphics package are used to create virtual 3D objects. The application of G₂H then converts these objects into haptic objects. The process makes it possible to develop complex and precise haptic virtual objects without writing code, thus allowing developers to work at a higher level than that offered by current labor-intensive techniques. For PC/NT based haptic virtual applications, this capability allows touchable objects, including volumetric objects, to be quickly created with a high degree of resolution