Haptic sensing of virtual textiles

Simulating the appearance and dynamic behaviour of textiles and clothes has a number of applications in the movie and entertainment business, in the textile industry, or in the artistic garment design process. For these reasons, cloth simulation has become a popular topic in the computer graphics research community, and competition is constantly increasing. During the last two decades, textile animation and rendering techniques have dramatically improved, especially in the physical behaviour and visual realism areas [1] (see Fig. 1). The interaction modalities with cloth-like deformable surfaces, however, have not followed this evolution. The most widespread methods for handling virtual textiles are traditionally based on the use of a mouse and a keyboard. But the limits imposed by old-fashioned interaction technology decrease many opportunities, as humans, used to skin contact with clothing materials since prehistoric ages, strongly rely on their feeling of touch when handling textiles.