Today’s invention is a haptic interface…a system which allows someone to apparently touch a 3-D designed object.
The design is done and its geometry sent to the device. The operator puts his hand in the system’s box, whilst viewing a (stereo) display of the object. Cameras in the box, track small marks on the operator’s fingers. This creates a display of the operator’s hand on the screen, together with that of the design object itself.
As the operator’s fingers move into positions where they would be about to collide with the object, if it were actually in the box, so a robot hand with cameras attached, follows the real fingers and provides the sensation of a solid object -by opposing the motion of the real fingers.
In this way, the operator sees a lifelike hand and feels coordinated fingertip contact with an apparently solid design.
