Incorporating haptic features into physics-based simulation

Abstract

In our graphic lab, we have developed many physics-based animations focusing on muscles and we hope to create an interactive interface with tactile feedback so that the users can not only see those physical features but also experience the forces in the muscle line. They will be able to touch on the surface of muscles and feel the muscle texture and they will also be able to drag the muscle line and feel the tension and forces. This is especially important for co-contraction of two opposing muscles, since co-contractions do not produce any motion by changes the stiffness of the joint. Therefore, we used the Geomagic Touch (tm) haptic device for generating the haptic feedbacks and to incorporate OpenHaptics for haptic programming.