Feeling the motion of object in a dynamic image sequence through haptic interface

In this paper we discussed how to incorporate haptic signals with a dynamic image sequence or other words a video to feel the motion of objects in it. Haptic technologies are being used in a wide range of application areas. However, the incorporation of haptic interface technology into a video media is still in its infancy. With the invention of digital multimedia and immersive displays, significance of exploring new ways of interacting with video media has grown up. Rather than just seeing and hearing a video, viewers´ experience can be further enhanced by letting them feel the movement of the objects in the video through haptic interface, as it is an additional sensation to seeing and hearing. The objective of this research is to use haptic interface technology to interact with a video and enable the viewers to feel the motion of objects in the video beyond passive watching and listening. In this paper, we discuss how to feel the motion, which is computed from frame to frame calculation of velocity using optical flow. For haptic motion rendering, we have proposed a method by experimentally evaluating two methods using a gain controller and using a non-linear function. To interact with the video we used the string based haptic device, SPIDAR, which provides a high definition force feedback sensation to users.