On the effects of haptic display in brush and ink simulation for Chinese painting and calligraphy

We develop an interactive haptic system, which can be a further aid for digital Chinese painting. When an artist is holding our force feedback device, one feels like holding a real painting brush with all the contact and bending forces, since the viscosity, friction, and the bending force of a brush touching the paper are simulated. First we derive a physical dynamics model as bending springs for bristles to construct a 3D brush. Then we simulate the ink-water transfer system for ink spreading and color blending. Our system is a real-time system and users can interact with it holding a digital brush supported by either a Phantom force feedback device or a "WACOM pressure sensing pen" on a tablet. A pilot experiment was conducted, and the results show that brush writing with haptic feedback is better than that of the same visual display but without haptic feedback.