Enabling Reusable Haptic Props for Virtual Reality by Hand Displacement

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) enables compelling visual experiences. However, providing haptic feedback is still challenging. Previous work suggests utilizing haptic props to overcome such limitations and presents evidence that props could function as a single haptic proxy for several virtual objects. In this work, we displace users’ hands to account for virtual objects that are smaller or larger. Hence, the used haptic prop can represent several differently-sized virtual objects. We conducted a user study (N = 12) and presented our participants with two tasks during which we continuously handed them the same haptic prop but they saw in VR differently-sized virtual objects. In the first task, we used a linear hand displacement and increased the size of the virtual object to understand when participants perceive a mismatch. In the second task, we compare the linear displacement to logarithmic and exponential displacements. We found that participants, on average, do not perceive the size mismatch for virtual objects up to 50% larger than the physical prop. However, we did not find any differences between the explored different displacement. We conclude our work with future research directions.