Haptic rendering

One experiences reality through five senses, and virtual reality through at most three: sight, sound, and touch. Of these three senses, touch in virtual environments is the least common. However, touch adds realism, and makes some applications possible which would be otherwise without it. The author therefore finds it useful to consider how haptic interfaces can be more easily integrated into virtual environments by abstracting the haptic rendering process. He then proposes a haptic renderer (HR) class for insulating a VE from haptic interface dependencies. Finally, he report on his experience with the HR class.