Interhaptics and Saarland University’s HCI Lab and UMTL teams are collaborating to study and better understand the process of designing haptic feedback. Thanks to Interhaptics for Academics, a platform entirely dedicated to research projects, and more particularly to the Haptic Composer, Bruno Fruchard (Postdoctoral Researcher) and Donald Degraen (Researcher Ph. D. Student), both at Saarland University, will be able to investigate the process of creating haptic feedback for virtual reality (VR) and will also explore the obstacles it has for developers.
Haptic feedback is not standardized, so its design remains a real challenge.
Therefore, haptic design for virtual reality (VR) can become a real brain teaser for VR developers as they need to go back and forth between the VR environment and the design tools. Ever since Interhaptics’ launch, its mission has been to evangelize haptics and give the community access to it, empowering their virtual content.
This collaboration aims for a better understanding of the full design process, including the challenges VR developers face when creating haptic feedback-related projects. The whole designing pipeline will be studied, from early-stage prototyping to designing detailed haptic experiences.
The research process will be composed of different steps, beginning with reaching out to professionals to understand the various stages of their design process and how they work. This research and collaboration aim to identify gaps that interactive tools could fill and provide solutions to these issues and ease the haptic feedback design process. Interhaptics as a whole, and specifically Interhaptics for Academics, is a way to connect the gaps and deliver a real solution for all VR haptic developers.
Saarland University, a leader in computer science & informatics research
Located in the southwest of Germany, Saarland University has earned an international reputation for its research in computer science and informatics and for work in the life sciences and nanosciences. Essentially the HCI Lab focuses on advanced interactive technologies and investigates new user interface concepts to create more effective, expressive, and engaging interactions with interactive systems.
“Haptic design is a complex task that involves various stages, from low-level prototyping to producing high-definition haptic experiences. To bridge these extremes, we want to provide interactive solutions inside the virtual environment that enable a quick iterative design process through seamless and efficient interactions.” Bruno Fruchard, Postdoctoral Researcher at Saarland University.
“Effective design for the sense of touch will support creators to enhance immersive virtual environments as never seen before.” Donald Degrean, Researcher Ph. D. Student at Saarland University.
Interhaptics, your tool to design haptics
Interhaptics is a software company specialized in haptics. Interhaptics provides hand interactions and haptic feedback development and deployment tools for virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), mobile, augmented reality (AR), and console applications. Interhaptics’ mission is to enable the growth of a scalable haptics ecosystem. Interhaptics strives to deliver top-notch development tools for the VR/MR/AR, mobile, and console developer community, and the interoperability of haptics-enabled content across any haptics-enabled platform.
“Interhaptics mission is to enable the haptics ecosystem to scale, and every decision we take is to reduce the barriers for haptics to be widely adopted by the digital ecosystem. With this mission in mind, the collaboration with the HCI group of Saarland University will allow us to understand deeper the unspoken needs of our users and streamline the digital haptics creation process.” Eric Vezzoli, CEO of Interhaptics
If you are looking to create wonderful haptics and you are interested in using Interhaptics for your haptic feedback designing projects, you can contact us here.
