Introduction to Haptic Media Design: Basics and Practical Implementations

Afternoon Turorial (Aria, 14:00-17:00)

The objective of this half-day workshop is to familiarize the audience with the recent advances in haptics research and its future perspective in designing haptic content. Although the outcome of haptics research is highly expected to be utilized to various applications, the outcome of haptic research cannot be easily applied to practical use in industry in a straightforward manner. This would be because people outside haptics research community usually have little knowledge on the sense of touch, and therefore it would be difficult to imagine what kinds of applications are possible with haptic content.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to develop haptic toolkit from scratch using commercially available devices (HaptuAmp, Haptuator, etc) and experience hands-on development at the workshop. After building the toolkit, we facilitate hands-on haptic workshops that help audience familiar with the creative use of haptic toolkit. After these workshops, we will also provide an opportunity to have constructive discussion on the future prospects and haptic technologies with participants.

Audience

This workshop should attract interests from most audience who are seeking the way to apply the outcome of haptics research in their fields. And their experiences in this workshop should lead to creative uses of haptics in the industries, and it may be helpful for raising research funds for the haptic research from industry, which will connect haptics research fields with another research communities.

Expected audience can be at introductory level in haptics study. Industrial researchers (development & design creators) or students who have just started Haptics study in electrical, mechanical, or engineering feel comfortable to attend this tutorial. Beside, students from psychology background are also welcome to attend this tutorial.

Tentative Program

• Introduction to Haptic media design
  facilitated by Masashi Nakatani
• Haptic Toolkit build up (using HaptuAmp, Haptuators, etc)
  facilitated by Tactile Labs
• Haptic design workshop - Basic
  facilitated by Masashi Nakatani and his students
• Haptic design workshop - Advanced - (Integrating with Motion Capture System)
  facilitated by Yon Visell and his students
• Discussion and future perspectives in Haptic media design

Organizers

Masashi Nakatani, Ph.D.   Project Associate Professor, Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University (Yokohama, Japan)

After receiving a Ph.D. in engineering, Masashi Nakatani worked for four years in cosmetic industry where he developed a haptic sensor system that evaluated softness of human skin. He returned to academic research in the spring of 2012 and has been conducting interdisciplinary research between sensor engineering and skin physiology. He also pursues to make a connection between research outcomes in academia and industry, represented by his recent inter-lab activity called TECHTILE (TECHnology based tacTILE design) project. He conducted multinational collaborations with the BioRobotics lab at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, USA), with the Haptics lab at McGill University (Montreal, Canada), and with the skin physiology lab at Columbia University Medical Center (New York, NY, USA).

Yon Visell, Ph.D.   Assistant Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, USA)

RE Touch Lab - Director and Principal Investigator. Dr. Visell's research focuses on haptic engineering, robotics, and the mechanics and neuroscience of touch. His work is motivated by creative applications in haptic human-computer interaction, sensorimotor augmentation, and interaction in virtual reality. He is Assistant Professor at UC Santa Barbara, in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Media Arts & Technology Program, and Mechanical Engineering Department. He is affiliated with the California NanoSystems Institute.

Xuan Duan, Ph.D.   President, Tactile Labs (Montreal, Canada)

Xuan Duan (PhD'07 McGill University) spent 4 years as post-doc/engineer in NRC working on haptic application projects. She's been working with Tactile Labs for many years and now serves as president in charge of project management, sales, and technical support. Xuan has many years of industry experience in real time control applications and software development. She's also participated many international conferences and workshops in haptic fields. Now she's on the mission to contribute in haptic applications and bridge academic projects to commercial development.

Hsin-Yun Yao, Ph.D.   Secretary, Tactile Labs (Montreal, Canada)

During her graduate studies, she has worked in collaboration with Queen's University on the development of the haptic enhanced surgical probe, and with Immersion Corp. on the vibrotactile peception for mobile devices. Hsin-Yun Yao was awarded the Best Hands-on Demo by conference delegates in EuroHaptics 2006 for her work on vibrotactile synthesis of moving objects. She has four years of industrial experience in software, real-time systems in telecommunication at Nortel Networks and Marconi Communications. Her research interests include vibrotactile actuators, mechanical-electrical systems modelling, embedded systems for haptic devices and tactile perception.