Hello listers,
The following Stanford University press release is a beautifully-written
exploration of some of Stanford's work on devices that work by
touch. Pondering the applications for blind consumers is irresistable.
Bryan Bashin
>4/1/03
>
>CONTACT: Dawn Levy, News Service: (650) 725-1944, dawnlevy@stanford.edu
>
>COMMENT: J. Kenneth Salisbury Jr., Computer Science: (650) 723-3994,
>kenneth.salisbury@stanford.edu
>
>EDITORS:This release was written by science writing intern Jessica Ruvinsky.
>
>Relevant Web URLs:
>http://jks-folks.stanford.edu/
>http://haptic.mech.nwu.edu/
>http://www.sensable.com/
>http://www.forcedimension.com/
>
>Researchers use haptics - the science of touch - to `feel` objects that
>don`t exist
>
>Anyone who thinks a pinch means they aren`t dreaming hasn`t tried haptics.
>J. Kenneth Salisbury Jr., research professor of computer science and of
>surgery, develops tools that allow people to touch - poke, squeeze, stroke
>and heave - the objects they see on their computer screen.
>
>Haptics, the science of touch, lets computer users interact with virtual
>worlds by feel. Some commercial computer games already benefit from early
>haptic devices, like the force-feedback steering wheels that torque and
>vibrate on bumpy driving-game roads. But haptics isn`t all fun and games.
>Scientists use computers to simulate not only the impact of a golf club
>hitting the ball, but also the springiness of a kidney under forceps, the
>push of an individual carbon nanotube in an atomic force microscope and
>the texture of clothing for sale on the Internet.
>
>Using Salisbury`s haptic technology is like exploring the virtual world
>with a stick. If you run your stick along a cyberspace sidewalk, it
>vibrates lightly. If you push it into a virtual balloon, you feel the
>balloon push back. The computer communicates sensations through a haptic
>interface - a stick, scalpel, racket or pen that is connected to
>force-exerting motors.
>
>``By coordinating the forces that are exerted on your handle or your stick
>or your stylus or your fingertips, you can make it feel as though you`re
>touching something,`` says Salisbury.
>
>Touch is an unusual sense in that it goes two ways. Haptic interfaces can
>communicate the contours of a sculpture, and they can apply pressure to
>sculpt. SensAble Technologies Inc., a spinoff from work Salisbury and
>colleagues did when he was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
>commercialized one such haptic interface in 1993. Designers have used it
>to carve out of thin air products from Nike shoe soles to Chicken Run
>collectibles.
>
>Salisbury`s Stanford lab also uses a haptic interface from ForceDimension,
>a company co-founded by graduate student Francois Conti. Conti is using
>one such device to take tactile ``pictures.`` The spiderlike robot handle
>presses on a surface and records the forces causing deformation. It can
>then play back the forces it experienced and make a person holding the
>handle feel like he`s poking the surface himself.
>
>Gaming is one of the first applications of haptics that is being realized.
>Two students in Salisbury`s experimental haptics course last spring
>programmed a forceful version of virtual ping-pong they called ``Haptic
>Battle Pong.`` Interest in the game caused an Internet traffic jam that
>shut down the haptic interface manufacturer`s website for a day.
>
>Also in the works is simulated surgery. Just as commercial pilots train in
>flight simulators before they`re unleashed on real passengers, surgeons
>will be able to practice their first incisions without actually cutting
>anyone. Simulation for surgical training is a major focus in Salisbury`s
>lab. This work is funded by the National Institutes of Health and
>Stanford`s Bio-X Program.
>
>Creating a realistic, interactive internal organ is no easy feat. ``It`s
>not just something that you can touch and say, `OK, it`s round and it`s
>squishy and it`s got a bump here,` but something that you can then cut and
>it will bleed, or sew and it will stop bleeding,`` Salisbury says.
>
>A liver is more complicated to model than is a ping-pong ball. For a ball,
>all you have to tell the computer is how soft or hard it is, how sticky or
>smooth, how stretchy, how dense. One value for each will do the trick. But
>a liver may get stiffer as you stretch it, or be more elastic in one
>direction than another. A healthy liver may feel nice and slippery, and a
>sick liver, not. And modeling the organ in real time, so that the image
>deforms when you poke it and not a second later, runs up against the
>limits of computing power.
>
>
>
>Go ahead - squeeze the Charmin
>
>Opposable thumbs are the next step in the evolution of computer haptics.
>Grasping is a much more natural way to interact with the virtual world. In
>May, postdoctoral researcher Federico Barbagli will travel to the
>International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Taiwan to present
>the Salisbury lab`s most recent gripper.
>
>The gripper consists of little haptic hats for the thumb and forefinger.
>With this new two-fingered haptic interface, researchers can pick up a
>virtual block, and then let it slip controllably between their fingers.
>That feat requires a degree of finesse, Salisbury says, that simply was
>not possible before.
>
>The new gripper also has the advantage of being transparent. ``A
>well-designed haptic device is one that makes you feel a contact when
>you`re touching something in the virtual environment, and magically
>disappears when you`re not touching anything,`` Barbagli says.
>
>Eventually, surgeons will sew virtual stitches with two hands, and virtual
>surgery will take on an unprecedented degree of realism. ``People will
>really begin to feel like they`re holding the tissue and they`re tearing
>it,`` Salisbury says. ``And they`ll feel bad about it because they
>squeezed too hard.``
>
>Jessica Ruvinsky is a science writing intern at the Stanford News Service.
>
>-30-
>
>By Jessica Ruvinsky
>
>
>News Service website:
>http://www.stanford.edu/news/
>
>Stanford Report (university newspaper):
>http://news.stanford.edu
>
>Most recent news releases from Stanford:
>http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/html/releases.html
>
>To change contact information for these news releases:
>news-service@llists.stanford.edu
>Phone: (650) 723-2558
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