Adding Touch to Immersive Media: An Overview of the MPEG Haptics Coding Standard

In May 2021, MPEG issued a call for proposals for the specification of a new coding format for haptic data. Following this call, a baseline reference design and associated software implementation were defined for the representation and coding of haptic data. It resulted in a standard that defines a complete generic framework for the delivery of haptic signals, allowing the development of current and future haptic applications in the mobile, gaming, and virtual reality domains. This paper introduces the results of the first phase of the MPEG haptics coding standard. It includes the description of the codec architecture, the current performances in terms of compression efficiency, and the plans for the coding representation and distribution of haptics. The publication of the final ISO international standard is expected in 2024.