Summary
Virtual reality (VR) and Human-computer interaction (HCI) are becoming available industrial technologies. However, to date, they miss support for touch interaction or haptics. While there are attempts to introduce various tactile/haptic interfaces in the market, these interfaces hardly take off, arguably because of technical barriers to integrate them and develop convincing applications.
The *feelware* project will break these barriers and will ease the adoption of tactile/haptic interfaces in VR and HCI applications. *feelware* is sustained on recent research carried out in the ERC Consolidator Grant *TouchDesign*, which formulates the command of tactile/haptic interfaces as a computational design problem. This approach creates a middleware layer between the VR/HCI application and the interface device, effectively simplifying integration. The results of *TouchDesign* have been demonstrated on diverse interfaces (thimbles, exoskeletons, ultrasound arrays), showing the success to provide a unifying middleware.
The *feelware* project will aid in the setup of a market-ready software solution, which can be embedded in third-party application-development environments (e.g., game development software), and can be coupled to diverse tactile/haptic interfaces. Developers will integrate such interfaces in a modular way, and will obtain touch interaction quick and easy.
Prior to this proposal, we have verified market interest on the proposed software solution. Major global players in the software field are working on VR/HCI projects, including haptics. But they all handle device integration through dedicated, complex, low-level solutions, which do not facilitate massive adoption by application developers. Our proposed solution could play a key role in future developments. A major action in the project will be to determine the best business model (i.e., b2b or b2c), and plan further development steps accordingly.
The *feelware* project will break these barriers and will ease the adoption of tactile/haptic interfaces in VR and HCI applications. *feelware* is sustained on recent research carried out in the ERC Consolidator Grant *TouchDesign*, which formulates the command of tactile/haptic interfaces as a computational design problem. This approach creates a middleware layer between the VR/HCI application and the interface device, effectively simplifying integration. The results of *TouchDesign* have been demonstrated on diverse interfaces (thimbles, exoskeletons, ultrasound arrays), showing the success to provide a unifying middleware.
The *feelware* project will aid in the setup of a market-ready software solution, which can be embedded in third-party application-development environments (e.g., game development software), and can be coupled to diverse tactile/haptic interfaces. Developers will integrate such interfaces in a modular way, and will obtain touch interaction quick and easy.
Prior to this proposal, we have verified market interest on the proposed software solution. Major global players in the software field are working on VR/HCI projects, including haptics. But they all handle device integration through dedicated, complex, low-level solutions, which do not facilitate massive adoption by application developers. Our proposed solution could play a key role in future developments. A major action in the project will be to determine the best business model (i.e., b2b or b2c), and plan further development steps accordingly.
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More information & hyperlinks
| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/899961 |
| Start date: | 01-08-2020 |
| End date: | 31-01-2022 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | - 150 000,00 Euro |
Cordis data
Original description
Virtual reality (VR) and Human-computer interaction (HCI) are becoming available industrial technologies. However, to date, they miss support for touch interaction or haptics. While there are attempts to introduce various tactile/haptic interfaces in the market, these interfaces hardly take off, arguably because of technical barriers to integrate them and develop convincing applications.The *feelware* project will break these barriers and will ease the adoption of tactile/haptic interfaces in VR and HCI applications. *feelware* is sustained on recent research carried out in the ERC Consolidator Grant *TouchDesign*, which formulates the command of tactile/haptic interfaces as a computational design problem. This approach creates a middleware layer between the VR/HCI application and the interface device, effectively simplifying integration. The results of *TouchDesign* have been demonstrated on diverse interfaces (thimbles, exoskeletons, ultrasound arrays), showing the success to provide a unifying middleware.
The *feelware* project will aid in the setup of a market-ready software solution, which can be embedded in third-party application-development environments (e.g., game development software), and can be coupled to diverse tactile/haptic interfaces. Developers will integrate such interfaces in a modular way, and will obtain touch interaction quick and easy.
Prior to this proposal, we have verified market interest on the proposed software solution. Major global players in the software field are working on VR/HCI projects, including haptics. But they all handle device integration through dedicated, complex, low-level solutions, which do not facilitate massive adoption by application developers. Our proposed solution could play a key role in future developments. A major action in the project will be to determine the best business model (i.e., b2b or b2c), and plan further development steps accordingly.
Status
CLOSEDCall topic
ERC-2019-POCUpdate Date
27-04-2024
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