Haptic Fruition of 3D Virtual Scene by Blind People

Haptic interfaces may allow blind people to interact naturally and realistically with 3D virtual models of objects that are unsuitable for direct tactile exploration. The haptic interaction can be offered at different scales, by changing the relative size of probe and objects and by organizing different levels of details into the model. In addition, haptic interfaces can actively drive the user along the most effective exploration path around the scene. All these features can significantly help the synthesis and the understanding of the huge amount of tactile sensations (that blinds must collect serially) beyond the limits of the exploration in the real world. The paper describes an architecture (and its already realized modules for visualization, collision detection and force simulation) intended to generate a reliable simulation of the geometrical and physical interactions between the user's hand and a virtual 3D scene.