Forum Discussion
Haptic gloves and desk chair
Hi there,
I would like your input on some idea's i had today.
Haptic gloves
I have a question about these. Why do most of them use a pull mechanism instead of a button like push one?
Wouldn't it be better to have a Razer hydra like controller with a button for each finger that can "push back"?
If one would use a band to hold the controller to the hand you can have your hands in an open postition and whenever your virtual hand grabs an object the tall buttons lock in the corresponding positions for each finger. What do you think?
Desk Chair
When using head movement separate from your body in a fps. Sometimes when you look around.. your forget where in the virtual space your hands are.
I was thinking of a small desk (that can fit your mouse and keyboard) attached to your chair. The chair and desk should be able to turn separately from each-other and both turns should be tracked independently in VR. This way.. wherever your hands are in the real world.. there is your gun. The chair should be very easily turn-able using your feet. Any thoughts on this idea?
I would like your input on some idea's i had today.
Haptic gloves
I have a question about these. Why do most of them use a pull mechanism instead of a button like push one?
Wouldn't it be better to have a Razer hydra like controller with a button for each finger that can "push back"?
If one would use a band to hold the controller to the hand you can have your hands in an open postition and whenever your virtual hand grabs an object the tall buttons lock in the corresponding positions for each finger. What do you think?
Desk Chair
When using head movement separate from your body in a fps. Sometimes when you look around.. your forget where in the virtual space your hands are.
I was thinking of a small desk (that can fit your mouse and keyboard) attached to your chair. The chair and desk should be able to turn separately from each-other and both turns should be tracked independently in VR. This way.. wherever your hands are in the real world.. there is your gun. The chair should be very easily turn-able using your feet. Any thoughts on this idea?
2 Replies
- As for the Haptic Gloves idea, look up "Control VR" it's something that is similar but has a lot of improvements.
And the rotatable desk idea sounds clunky in my opinion. - Nah ControlVR is just an input device, they've talked about haptics but unless they've made any recent announcements that slipped under my radar, it's not super relevant in this case.
I like the idea of having a compressive force being the source of the haptic feedback in a 'true-haptic' glove rather than a tensive force, as we seem to see in most of the hacked-together gloves. It's appealing to our intuition because 99% of the forces that restrict our movement in reality are compressive forces - you can't push your hand through a brick wall because the bricks resist the compression you're trying to put on them.
It wouldn't be too hard to build a glove that illustrated the fundamental mechanical ideas there - but when you start thinking about exactly how the mechanics would work, it starts becoming very hairy.
I've actually spent a lot of time thinking about 'true-haptic' gloves, and I've also thought about using compressive forces rather than tensive ones. I'll explain where my thoughts are at so far.
Each knuckle joint you have has two axes of movement - flexion/reflexion, which is the motion your knuckle makes when you make a beckoning gesture, and adduction/abduction, which is the side-to-side motion of your knuckles, like when you wiggle your pointer finger in a 'tut-tut' gesture. Each minor finger joint has only flexion and reflexion.
If you want to have compressive haptics you need to have some way of limiting each of these motions for each joint. Doing say, just the flexion/reflexion of the knuckle joints wouldn't be too hard - you could have a small pivot built into the palm of the hand that can lock position at any particular rotation. But whatever mechanism you have for limiting movement, you are going to need 20 of them within a single glove, so it starts becoming difficult just in terms of fitting them into something that has a form factor that's easy-to-use, looks appealing and isn't too cumbersome. Possible? Perhaps. Difficult? Extremely.
I actually have an idea bouncing around my head about how to achieve this, but I'm not going to give away all my secrets now am I? :D
I just realised I've gotten very carried away - you were asking about a razer hydra-like controller that has sort of a dynamically-shaped handle. I think that's a really great idea - it has very limited application for haptics, but great application in the often-bandied idea of dynamic controllers in VR. Like, you have a 'master' controller, that within VR (using the position-data of each finger joint), can be any controller you want. If it was dynamically sized it would increase immersion significantly. You change weapons from a small pistol to a large rifle and the controller changes shape to match. Then you pull out a sword and the controller changes shape from a pistol-grip to a sword-hilt. I think it's definitely worth giving it a shot - time for you to learn soldering I think!
In terms of your desk chair idea - it would be pretty cool for cockpit-games like EVE Valkyrie and whatever, but becomes totally useless once you are using any input method other than keyboard/mouse, since other input methods (like stem or ControlVR) don't require a desk surface anyway.
So it's a nifty idea, but probably not worth the effort since I feel like the keyboard/mouse combo's days are numbered in the VR space, since there are just so many really awesome new input methods entering the market.
