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A study of level-of-detail in haptic rendering

Published:01 January 2005Publication History
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Abstract

This paper presents an initial study of an approach to reduce computational overhead in haptic rendering of physically based models. Haptic rendering refers to the notion of adding physical properties and behavior, specifically a sense of touch or force feedback, to models of objects. In this way, a user through a haptic feedback device can feel interaction forces while visually observing the objects. Physically based modeling is particularly important when representing deformable objects. In this paper, an approach based on a mass-spring damper system is used in modeling deformable objects. Deformation due to interaction forces is obtained by solving a set of differential equations, a process that is in general computationally demanding. To reduce this demand, the notion of level-of-detail in haptic rendering is introduced. Here the interplay between the graphical mesh and the haptic mesh as a function of various levels of subdivision is studied. The approach we describe is to adjust model parameters such that the user feels the same reaction force for a given deformation, regardless of the level of local subdivision.A preliminary user study with simple objects suggests there can be a local subdivision threshold such that the user cannot distinguish between global subdivision and the local subdivision introduced by the level-of-detail algorithm. This conclusion is beneficial for haptic rendering of deformable objects. Similar conclusions were obtained for haptic rendering of rigid objects. These results can be used as a guideline for other approaches to modeling deformable objects, such as finite element representations.

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              Georgios Papaioannou

              Haptic feedback is becoming more and more common in the visual simulation of various critical tasks. To this end, the physical properties of the underlying material need to be measured or evaluated, and used to simulate the forces applied to the virtual tool that manipulates the surface or volume of the three-dimensional objects with which the user interacts. Very often, the demand for visual quality of the three-dimensional objects in terms of surface smoothness is very high, resulting in highly tessellated meshes for visualization. Unfortunately, trying to perform the physical simulation of the surface or volume using a spring model or the finite element method on the highly tessellated version of the object can result in noninteractive rates. Alternatively, the mesh used for physical simulation can be of a lower resolution than the visualized one, and the selected level of detail may be determined adaptively in a global manner (for the whole mesh), or via local subdivision of the triangulated surface. The authors present a usability evaluation of the various alternatives to full-resolution simulation, and measure their impact on the perceived quality of the haptic feedback. A simple test case is used in the paper, and various tests are performed using a group of different individuals, measuring their ability to detect a difference between the full-resolution underlying mesh and one of the alternatives, namely, fixed or adaptive global low-resolution mesh substitution and adaptive local subdivision. The results of the presented case study are interesting because they provide a detailed credibility study of the various methods. The case study confirms that adaptive local subdivision provides a good alternative to full subdivision, and matches full-resolution physical simulation in terms of feedback quality. Unfortunately, due to the very limited set of test cases (one very simple surface), the reliability of the results may be questioned. Furthermore, although the authors discuss the limits of tactile detail discrimination, no tests are provided for the problematic case of rough or grainy but elastic or viscous surfaces, where very high local tessellation may be required. Online Computing Reviews Service

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