Descripción del proyecto
The rapid development of Virtual Reality has been very impressive during the past 15 years. However the main focus so far has been on visual perception, supported by developments in computer graphics. Clearly, humans have more senses beyond vision and there have been considerable attempts to integrate jointly acoustic and visual perception channels. Despite the previous achievements, the progress in VR systems as to incorporating haptic perception in a multimodal interaction paradigm is far less satisfying and still at the beginning. As an illustration for this new research on multimodal interaction, we choose as example Multimodal perception of textiles in the virtual environment. HAPTEX proposes to develop new avenues for research that enable a person to perceive, touch and manipulate textiles. Significant advances in existing technology are necessary in order to integrate the visual and haptic/tactile interfaces to achieve the complete virtual experience of a physical object. The main research issues are: Development of physics based techniques to model the behavior of textile; Development of a visual model that enables realistic rendering of the textile; Design of an interface that enables both tactile and haptic rendering; Synchronization of the multiple sensory feedback to create a consistent and physically possible experience. Each of these individual problems is very challenging and will lead to the development of novel techniques in the respective areas. HAPTEX provides a platform for experts in these individual areas to work in conjunction with each other to reach a common goal of generating a realistic, efficient multimodal experience. We expect HAPTEX to investigate how far it is possible to provide a user with a completely reliable sense of fabric through a virtual experience. The project has many applications for the textile industry, but the main impact will be the significant advancement of multimodal interaction tools, techniques and know-how.