Summary:
This paper presents a Haptic device called SPIDAR which is used to interact with the virtual world. The device consists of the ball in the center which is attached to different pulleys through strong nylon threads. This system provides user with 6 DOF and 7th is the grasp which is provided using a pressure sensor on th ball.
The interaction with the virtual world is through the movement of the SPIDAR ball in the restricted environment (each SPIDAR corresponds to the single object)provided by the arrangement. The motion of ball in a given direction creates tension in some of the strings of available direction. This tension drives the pulley against resistance provided by the motor. This motion is captured and used a the input for the motion of the object associated. Authors have stated thats such a system can be beneficial for use in tele-operation, medical operations. molecular simulations etc.
The system of two SPIDER was tested on three users, where each of the user was assigned a task of controlling a sphere in a virtual world with one hand (SPIDER) and using the other hand (SPIDER) to touch a pointer to the marks on the sphere . They observed that people liked SPIDER -G&G (bi modal version) compared to the SPIDER-G (single mode version) because the bi modal version seemed much intuitive.Also they found that users were able to perform better when provided with haptic feedback.
Discussion:
This device is a self developed device by the authors and has nice combination of the mechanics of strings and computer manipulation of the data. Though device has a good feedback, movement of the ball is restricted by the strings as they may interfere with each other. Also, we have to apply a balanced force to interact with the system as the system is not fixed and may fall down with more force and with less force may not give desired result.
However the cost involved in such a system is a limiting factor and also no new work has been reported which limits my knowledge about the current state of the system. Also since there is one SPIDER per objects,the interaction is very limited. May be with some kind of switch single SPIDER can be used to interact with the other objects with just the press of the switching switch. Also, it would be interesting if the similar objects can be grouped together and then the single SPIDER can be used to manipulate with them in virtual world.
Since I have personally used the system, I believe it is one of the stand apart application and very useful in terms of interaction response provided by the device.
2 comments:
Hmm...if I remember correctly, I remember Dr. Luo mentioning that they've worked on several more applications which involve the SPIDAR-Gs, so there might be some later publications already out? In terms of cost, I don't think that will be an issue since, as Dr. Hammond said, designing techniques now would be beneficial once similar devices become more affordable. Take the CyberGlove, for example. :D The SPIDAR-G device is pretty interesting and novel, and I found very little to criticize about it. It just needs an armrest or something. What would be snazzy if it had no strings! Perhaps put the ball itself in some sort of anti-gravity or gel-like substance? :P
It's really nice to have experiences to use their system before reading this paper. I also have a similiar question that how much force should be perform to move a virtual object. I guess user should be careful or a light object would fly away.
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