Pergamon Comput. & Graphics, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 389-391, 1997

Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in Great Britain 0097-8493/97 $17.00 + 0.00

Haptic Displays in Virtual Environments

GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION Computer Graphics has become a diverse field ranging from Scientific Visualization to Virtual Reality. Applications can be found in a variety of areas, e.g. architecture, virtual prototyping and medicine. Especially in virtual prototyping and medicine, visual representations of the virtual envir- onments combined with acoustical feedback are not sufficient to meet the demands of the user. Therefore research activities started to develop new and innovative devices which stimulate the human haptic senses, like kinesthetic, tactile, temperature or the vestibular sense. These devices are named Haptic Displays. In addition to the development of haptic displays, concepts concerning the integration into visualization and VR systems have been specified and realized. Current research is thus focusing on

basic research, haptic display design, software libraries with haptic functions, physical and/or perceptual based modelling, haptic-audio-visual effects and synchronization, distributed haptic systems, haptic rendering. human factors, applications.

In this issue eight papers are presented, including university and industry contributions. All papers are representative of background work and implementa- tions as well as on-going research, problems and achievements, in haptic feedback in Virtual Environ- ments. There are some more pieces of fine research worth considering which, because of the limited space, could not be included in the present issue.

The paper of Srinivasan et al. describes major advances concerning techniques and processes asso- ciated with the generation and display of haptic stimuli. Pai et al. introduce a mathematical back-

ground to construct multiresolution models of boundary curves in images using wavelet multi- resolution, and describe a system for interaction with shapes in two dimensional images with force feed- back, using haptic devices. A completely different subject, software libraries for supporting haptic interfaces, is presented by Iwata et al. and a no less interesting topic is discussed by Buttolo et al., who describe techniques to integrate force feedback in shared virtual simulations dealing with significant and unpredictable delays. Extensive references to hardware prototypes, training and achieved results are provided by the next three papers. Luecke et al. present results from a prototype exoskeleton device for use in virtual feedback systems, Haanpaa et al. describe an innovative method that overcomes low performance on manual control tasks by integrating core technologies of force feedback, and Langrana et al. focus attention on a virtual reality training simulator using Rutgers Master II force feedback system for examination and palpation of a virtual liver. Last but not least, efforts for an integration of haptic interface at IGD are presented including in- house developed hardware devices as well as indus- trial applications and on-going projects using force, tactile (including temperature) and motion feedback. Although not all of the listed topics have been covered by the following papers. we hope this issue will give an overview of these topics and will provide a resource for those involved in further developments.

Finally, we would like to express our thanks to the authors for their commitment and understanding during the preparation of this issue. We hope you enjoy reading these pages as we enjoyed preparing them.

JOSE DIONiSIO ROLF ZIEGLER

Guest Editors

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390 Guest Editors’ Introduction

Jo& Dionisio

CURRICULUM VITAE

JosC Dionisio was born in 1965, in Lisbon, Portugal. Presently he is a full-time researcher at the FhG-IGD. Fraunhofer for Computer Graphics, in Darmstadt. His educational background includes a graduation in Mechanical Engineering (1988) and an MSc. in Mechanical Engineering (1992), both degrees from the Technical Superior Institute (IST), Lisbon, Portugal. In 1992, he started his doctoral work in Computer Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany). Prior to joining the Fraunhofer IGD in 1995, he worked in industry, focusing on computer-based building simulation, modelling and visualization of light, heat and air flow phenomena in buildings. Further research and consulting activities address the areas of computer-aided design, management information systems, medical imaging, and finally, immersive virtual environments and haptic feedback. His present research interests in Computer Graphics include, among others, interaction techniques, photorealistic presentation, physical phenomena simulation and feedback in virtual environments. He has published a number of technical papers on selected topics mentioned above.

Guest Editors’ Introduction 391

Rolf Ziegler

CURRICULUM VITAE

Rolf Ziegler received his university degree (Dipl.-Inform.) in compuer science from the Technical University of Darmstadt in 1987. Since 1987 he has been a staff member of the Department of Visualization and Virtual Reality at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD) in Darmstadt.

He has been in charge of several R&D projects involving standardization in Computer Graphics (CGI standard) and VR applications in the areas of marketing, telecommmunication, landscape redevelopment, and medicine.

His major research interests focus on scientific visualization, sim;.tlation and virtual reality. especially for medical applications. In 1993 he was in charge of a project to develop a VR arthroscopy training simulator. His Ph.D. thesis deals with the integration of haptic displays into VR systems. Since September 1995 he has been head of the VR group within the department and responsible for the VR demonstration centre.