Distributed Haptic Environments Project Role in Support of Imsc Strategic Plan Discussion of Methodology Used

In many applications of haptics it will be necessary for users to interact with each other as well as with other objects. We have developed architecture, for haptic collaboration among distributed users. Our focus is on collaboration over a non-dedicated channel (such as an Internet connection) where users experience stochastic, unbounded communication delays Adding haptics to multiuser environments creates additional demand for frequent position sampling for collision detection and fast update. It is also reasonable to assume that in multiuser environments, there may be a heterogeneous assortment of haptic devices (e.g. the PHANToM, the CyberGrasp, the iFeel mouse) with which users interact with the system. One of our primary concerns is thus to ensure proper registration of the disparate devices with the 3D environment and with each other. A key component of the MIE is the existence of a virtual environment that is shared by multiple users at distinct locations. Several projects within IMSC address the multiple issues that need to be resolved to make the MIE a reality. This is one of these projects. Although we are currently focusing our attention on the collaboration of haptics devices, the architecture under development is designed to accommodate non-haptic components. Our goal is to design an architecture that will support collaborative touch in virtual environments. We term such environments a virtual haptic world. As shown in Figure 1, users may have different kinds of haptic devices, such as the PHANToM, CyberGrasp, or a FEELit mouse, or they can just be viewers. Some of the participants in the haptic world may only provide virtual objects as a service to the remaining users. This would be the role, e.g., of a museum's server.