Object Motion Rendering with the String-based Haptic Interface SPIDAR for Enhanced Video Viewing Experience

With the invention of immersive displays and high technology multimedia systems, there is an interest of viewers for more realistic and interactive experience with video media. Their viewing experience can be further enhanced by letting them to feel the motion of objects in a video through haptic interface, as it is an additional sensation over seeing and hearing it. The objective of this research is to use the string based haptic interface, SPIDAR to interact with the video and enable the viewers to feel the motion of objects in it, beyond passive watching and listening. We propose two methods for object motion rendering i.e. linear gain controller method and nonlinear gain controller method. Further, we evaluated those two methods with the participation of real users, with the objective of identifying the better one. We can conclude that using a nonlinear gain controller method is more effective than using a linear gain controller method for object motion rendering because from that method user can get a continuous feeling of the movement of objects in the video. Based on the feedback of real users, we can also conclude that haptic motion rendering of a video sequence enhances the viewing experience of viewers. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v6i1.6096 International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2013 6(1)