Wearable 3D Shape Display for Dynamic Interfaces Rendering

Recreating the feeling of touch is crucial for seamless interactions with objects in the virtual world. Many haptic solutions exist in the forms of graspable, wearable, and touchable systems for recreating kinesthetic and tactile feedback. Yet, to the best of our knowledge, no wearable system to date can directly render dynamic shapes in user’s hand with drastic shape rendering capabilities. We present a wearable 3D haptic display with drastic shape change and dynamic signal rendering. We explored direct physical and dynamic rendering of shapes in users’ hands using a 3D lattice of pneumatic actuators-a direct-embodiment approach. We also conducted user studies to determine the efficacy of the shape and frequency rendering and found the results to be generally convincing.