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I saw this presented at CHI, and I think it's a ingenious and elegant sensory illusion that could make jumping in certain VR games actually feel immersive with

by babel_ 3y ago

I saw this presented at CHI, and I think it's a ingenious and elegant sensory illusion that could make jumping in certain VR games actually feel immersive with haptic feedback and the ability to more closely match the height the avatar jumps to the perceived sense of physically jumping. Very neat. Of course, the funny thing is humans don't jump in real life anywhere near as much as they do in video games, and this has seemingly affected VR with few having purpose-built jumping mechanics (and many just using a button press instead), so maybe things like this closes the gap somewhat and make it something explored more in design. On another note, there was another presentation by what I believe was the same research group, which was haptic feedback on the hands without covering the palm or underside of the fingers (and non-invasively). That was a particularly interesting, as the XR possibilities actually open up when you don't have bulky gloves covering that highly sensitive region (palm, finger tips, etc), and instead only have electrodes on the back of the hand, meaning you can overlap the sensations without damping by gloves. And this is not just for VR stuff (though they showed things like climbing in VR), but with AR/XR utility too! Need to do precise soldering work? This would let you have the full physical feedback, and then overlay it with helpful haptic feedback so you get nudged towards the right area and then don't stray (so you don't accidentally knock something off, perhaps). So this would be actually useful XR without any headset. Given the bulky setups that existing approaches use, I found it surprising this wasn't covered in the article, especially as part of a "here's other stuff the research group is working on for VR/XR" shortlist.

thomastjeffery 3y ago
> On another note, there was another presentation by what I believe was the same research group, which was haptic feedback on the hands without covering the palm or underside of the fingers (and non-invasively). Got a link? That's definitely interesting.
- _vk_ 3y ago
  I believe this is it: https://spectrum.ieee.org/finger-haptics https://spectrum.ieee.org/finger-haptics >This method depends on what’s called “referred sensation,” where stimulation of your body in one place gets felt in another place—it’s like when you accidentally bash your elbow against something but can feel tingling up through your fingers, because the signal has traveled along your nerves up through your hand. In some places, including in the fingers, referred sensation can be targeted with a reasonable amount of precision. With a signal electrode on the top of a finger and a ground electrode closer to the wrist, it’s possible to stimulate individual parts of each finger, creating 11 separately controllable tactile zones across five fingers and the palm. >However, just zapping fingers doesn’t provide a way of getting those signals to show up just on the bottom (palmar) side of the fingers, rather than the top (dorsal) side, which is where the signal is originating. Fortunately, the asymmetrical way that the nerves in our hands are set up makes this possible. The backhanded stimulation technique works because your palm and finger pads are way, way more sensitive than the backs of your hands, thanks to about 60 times more mechanoreceptors on the palmar side. So, if you use an electrode to stimulate the back of one of your fingers, the sensitivity on the front is so much higher that you’re going to feel it there much more strongly, even though the electrode is in direct contact with the back side. The researchers were able to find a stimulation intensity that was enough to trigger nerves on the finger pads, while staying below the detection threshold on the back side of the fingers, neatly solving the problem.
  - thomastjeffery 3y ago
    That's really neat! I wish they didn't pause their video the moment it gets interesting, though.

by babel_ 3y ago

thomastjeffery 3y ago

> On another note, there was another presentation by what I believe was the same research group, which was haptic feedback on the hands without covering the palm or underside of the fingers (and non-invasively). Got a link? That's definitely interesting.

_vk_ 3y ago
I believe this is it: https://spectrum.ieee.org/finger-haptics https://spectrum.ieee.org/finger-haptics >This method depends on what’s called “referred sensation,” where stimulation of your body in one place gets felt in another place—it’s like when you accidentally bash your elbow against something but can feel tingling up through your fingers, because the signal has traveled along your nerves up through your hand. In some places, including in the fingers, referred sensation can be targeted with a reasonable amount of precision. With a signal electrode on the top of a finger and a ground electrode closer to the wrist, it’s possible to stimulate individual parts of each finger, creating 11 separately controllable tactile zones across five fingers and the palm. >However, just zapping fingers doesn’t provide a way of getting those signals to show up just on the bottom (palmar) side of the fingers, rather than the top (dorsal) side, which is where the signal is originating. Fortunately, the asymmetrical way that the nerves in our hands are set up makes this possible. The backhanded stimulation technique works because your palm and finger pads are way, way more sensitive than the backs of your hands, thanks to about 60 times more mechanoreceptors on the palmar side. So, if you use an electrode to stimulate the back of one of your fingers, the sensitivity on the front is so much higher that you’re going to feel it there much more strongly, even though the electrode is in direct contact with the back side. The researchers were able to find a stimulation intensity that was enough to trigger nerves on the finger pads, while staying below the detection threshold on the back side of the fingers, neatly solving the problem.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  That's really neat! I wish they didn't pause their video the moment it gets interesting, though.