Introduction to Virtual Reality and Haptic Feedback
Virtual reality (VR) provides individuals with dynamic and immersive experiences, at the least visually. But imagine if users also had physical objects they might interact with that corresponded with the visual environment, to increase the immersive experience to physical touch. In a recent advance, researchers describe a novel shape-shifting device, called Shiftly, which provides haptic feedback for VR users. It has an underlying origami structure that enables it to portray different curves, edges, and flat surfaces on demand, in a matter of seconds.
The Challenge of Haptic Feedback in VR
Numerous studies have suggested that haptic feedback can enhance the VR experience. But, making haptics just as dynamic because the visual feedback has proven difficult. Users interact with many in a different way shaped objects in VR, and due to this fact, considered one of the predominant challenges for such a haptic device is to have the opportunity to approximate a wide selection of very different geometries and surfaces. Some dynamically shape-shifting haptic designs exist, but these are likely to be fairly complex and expensive to fabricate.
Origami’s Role in Haptic Technology
Shiftly uses a really different, age-old traditional approach that has been used to support a wide selection of scientific advances: origami. The ancient art of paper folding allows people to create many various shapes—and with various levels of stiffness—using strategically placed folds. Origami has been used extensively in robotics, infrastructure design, and cellular biology. Inspired by the approach, researchers designed Shiftly in order that it has three curved origami arranged in a prism-like configuration, which allows the device to create flat, curved, and edged shapes.
How Shiftly Works
Shiftly takes between 0.25 to 4 seconds to transition between shapes. Of note, it cannot create complex shapes, akin to a coffee mug, but more general shapes, like an edge or wave. The researchers tested Shiftly through two different experiments with users. In the primary experiment, blindfolded volunteers placed their hands on a 3D printed Shiftly, while it approximated considered one of seven flat, curved, or edged shapes, respectively. After feeling but not seeing Shiftly in a certain shape, the users were asked to have a look at a set of shapes on a screen and choose the one that the majority closely matched the one they’d felt while blindfolded.
User Testing and Feedback
In the second experiment, greater than 140 users piloted Shiftly at a 2023 conference held by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (ACM SIGGRAPH). The SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies conference was held in Los Angeles. There, because the participants checked out different objects through a VR headset, Shiftly would approximate an analogous shape of their hand. Afterwards, they were asked to rate how realistic Shiftly’s simulations were on a scale of 1 (very bad) to 7 (superb). Some shapes scored high—for instance, users reported a median of 5.42 out of seven for Shiftly’s ability to approximate a wave shape, and 5.29 for a house shape.
Future Possibilities and Conclusion
The source code for the CAD and VR demo applications of a 3D printed Shiftly are publicly available, however the researchers don’t yet have plans to commercialize the tech. Instead, they see the device as more of an early prototype for exploring latest possibilities of origami and origami-inspired structures for haptic interfaces. For example, the researchers are focused on attaching Shiftly to a mobile robotic arm, enabling design architects to create a dynamic testing bed for his or her designs in large-scale environments. Such a system would enable designers and designers not only to see, but additionally to the touch and feel spaces and objects they digitally plan and design. In future work, they plan to explore this further and moreover use Shiftly as an input device, sensing the user’s touches and the pressure the user applies to the origami.
