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Zhenxing Li: Realistic touch-based interaction in virtual reality

Tampere University
Location Tampere
Remote connection
13.8.2021 9.00–13.00
Entrance feeFree of charge
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Current interactive virtual reality (VR) systems mainly engage the senses of vision and hearing. Realistic touch-based interaction in VR could largely enhance immersion and extend the range of VR applications. In his dissertation Zhenxing Li aims to enable efficient and accurate kinesthetic (touch-based) interaction in VR.

Current interactive VR systems, such as HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, mainly engage visual and auditive modalities. However, as one of the most important human interaction channels, the sense of touch is often missing or underused in current VR systems. Realistic touch-based interaction in the virtual environment could largely improve the immersion of VR and potentially extend the range of VR applications.

VR motion controllers allow the user’s hand motion as the input modality and optionally provide vibration feedback to the hands, enabling tactile interaction. In human-computer interaction, tactile interaction focuses on cutaneous sensations such as vibration and pressure. However, while using tactile feedback such as the vibration from VR motion controllers, it is difficult to implement realistic touch-based interaction in VR.

The present research focused on movement-based touch sensations from the muscles, tendons and joints, that is, kinesthetic interaction. Kinesthetic techniques can support realistic bidirectional touch behaviours. They allow the user’s hand motion to be the kinesthetic input and provide force feedback as the kinesthetic output to simulate the feeling of touch. Multiple kinesthetic devices can be used to implement kinesthetic interaction in VR. Among them, force-feedback devices are more mature. However, there is a major challenge while using the force-feedback devices in VR applications, that is, their small device workspace cannot be directly used to explore a large virtual environment. The current solution to this challenge is to employ a large control-display (CD) gain. While holding the device arm, this technique scales a small hand motion to a large motion of the cursor in the virtual world and thus increases the device workspace.

The aim of Zhenxing Li’s dissertation is to enable efficient and accurate hand-based kinesthetic interaction for VR. The research was divided into three steps: problem understanding, development and application. First, the research examined the strengths and weaknesses of CD gain on kinesthetic interaction and thus provided an empirical basis for designing new kinesthetic VR interfaces. Second, to address the issue of limited workspace, three new multimodal kinesthetic VR interfaces were developed by using the user’s gaze as an input modality. The research also increased the understanding of human kinesthetic perception in a virtual environment and identified the critical factors for designing high-quality kinesthetic interfaces in terms of kinesthetic perception accuracy. Third, the research explored medical applications of a kinesthetic VR interface and demonstrated its potential to be the next-generation user interface in the field of medical diagnosis and planning.

Kinesthetic VR interfaces provide users with a head movement-based viewing perspective and allow them to employ hand motion to manipulate objects with force feedback. This interaction method is as natural and realistic as our everyday interactions in the physical world. Li’s research contributed to this research area by implementing efficient and accurate kinesthetic VR interaction and exploring its application.

“Following the advances of kinesthetic techniques in both hardware and software, kinesthetic VR interfaces have great potential to become popular and powerful interfaces between humans and computers,” Li says. 

The academic dissertation of MSc Zhenxing Li in the field of interactive technology titled Efficient and accurate hand-based kinesthetic interaction for virtual reality will be publicly examined in the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences at Tampere University on August 13th, 2021, at 12.00 noon. The opponent will be Senior Research Professor Nigel W. John, University of Chester, UK. The custos will be Professor Roope Raisamo from Tampere University, Finland.

The event can be followed online via Teams.

The dissertation is available online at http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-2052-2