Haptic technologies for the conceptual and validation phases of product design

The paper presents two applications of haptic technologies to demonstrate how they can increase human computer interaction during different steps of design process. The first application aims at developing a system to generate digital shapes by manipulating haptic tools that resemble the physical ones that the modelers use in everyday work. The second is focused on the use of haptic interfaces to evaluate ergonomics of virtual products control boards. We designed and developed the mentioned haptic devices; the first uses two FCS HapticMaster equipped with a innovative strong and stiff 6 DOF device carrying simulated clay modeling tools. The second is an ''ad hoc'' mechatronic device able to simulate some controls with rotary motions (knobs). The described haptic devices are integrated in more complex virtual reality applications; the paper describes their architecture and the methodologies proposed to simulate material shaping and ergonomic validation. The main aspects of haptic modeling and rendering are also discussed.

[1]  Stephen D. Laycock,et al.  Recent Developments and Applications of Haptic Devices , 2003, Comput. Graph. Forum.

[2]  Cagatay Basdogan,et al.  Haptics in virtual environments: taxonomy, research status, and challenges , 1997, Comput. Graph..

[3]  Arie E. Kaufman,et al.  Volume sculpting , 1995, I3D '95.

[4]  Hiroo Iwata,et al.  Volume haptization , 1993, Proceedings of 1993 IEEE Research Properties in Virtual Reality Symposium.

[5]  Hiroo Iwata,et al.  Project FEELEX: adding haptic surface to graphics , 2001, SIGGRAPH.

[6]  Ricardo S. Avila,et al.  A haptic interaction method for volume visualization , 1996, Proceedings of Seventh Annual IEEE Visualization '96.

[7]  Philippe Coiffet,et al.  Virtual Reality Technology , 2003, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[8]  J. Edward Colgate,et al.  Factors affecting the Z-Width of a haptic display , 1994, Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[9]  Hong Qin,et al.  A novel haptics-based interface and sculpting system for physics-based geometric design , 2001, Comput. Aided Des..

[10]  Etienne Grandjean,et al.  Fitting the Task to the Man: A Textbook of Occupational Ergonomics , 1988 .

[11]  Tjamme Wiegers,et al.  EXTRACTION OF CAD TOOL REQUIREMENTS FROM INDUSTRY AND FROM EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN PROJECTS , 2001 .

[12]  Pixar Animation Studios,et al.  Physically Based Modeling , 2001 .

[13]  Kunwoo Lee,et al.  Principles of CAD/CAM/CAE Systems , 1999 .

[14]  Alan H S Chan,et al.  Movement compatibility for rotary control and circular display--Computer Simulated Test and real Hardware Test. , 2003, Applied ergonomics.

[15]  Beverley Norris,et al.  Filling 'gaps' in strength data for design. , 2003, Applied ergonomics.

[16]  William R. Sherman,et al.  Understanding Virtual RealityInterface, Application, and Design , 2002, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[17]  Mark Lehto,et al.  A review of: “Virtual Reality Technology” Grigore Burdea and Philippe Coiffet John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994 , 1996 .

[18]  Hong Qin,et al.  Virtual clay: a real-time sculpting system with haptic toolkits , 2001, I3D '01.

[19]  Grigore C. Burdea,et al.  Force and Touch Feedback for Virtual Reality , 1996 .

[20]  John Kenneth Salisbury,et al.  A constraint-based god-object method for haptic display , 1995, Proceedings 1995 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Human Robot Interaction and Cooperative Robots.

[21]  Karim Abdel-Malek,et al.  Approximate swept volumes of NURBS surfaces or solids , 2005, Comput. Aided Geom. Des..

[22]  Ivan Poupyrev,et al.  3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice , 2004 .

[23]  Norman I. Badler,et al.  Simulating humans: computer graphics animation and control , 1993 .

[24]  Vincent Hayward,et al.  Haptic interfaces and devices , 2004 .

[25]  Ulrich Berger,et al.  Application of Digital Human Modelling Concepts for Automotive Production , 2004 .

[26]  Umberto Cugini,et al.  Virtual humans and prototypes to evaluate ergonomics and safety , 2005 .