Tech lets users feel 3D objects on flat screens
Source: gizmag.com
Our smartphones and tablets may be able to show us what things look and sound like, but with their flat glass screens, there’s no way that they could indicate what something feels like ... right? Actually, they may soon be able to do that, too. Researchers at Disney Research, Pittsburgh have developed a system that lets users’ fingertips feel a simulated bump through a flat screen, that corresponds to a bump in the displayed image.
A user of Disney’s new system is able to feel the ridges in a trilobite fossil, even though it’s displayed on a completely flat screen
Ordinarily, when we feel a bump as we’re sliding our finger across a smooth surface, we do so because the increase in friction created by the bump causes the skin in our fingertip to stretch ever so slightly.
In order to simulate that friction, the Disney team uses a conductive display in which the electrostatic forces between the finger and the glass can be modulated by applying more or less voltage to the screen. An algorithm keeps track of the location and speed of the user’s moving fingertip, and adjusts the "electrovibrations" to match the topography of the part of the image that’s being touched.
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Read the full article at: gizmag.com
