Novel haptic interface For viewing 3D images

In recent years there has been an explosion of devices and systems capable of displaying stereoscopic 3D images. While these systems provide an improved experience over traditional bidimensional displays they often fall short on user immersion. Usually these systems only improve depth perception by relying on the stereopsis phenomenon. We propose a system that improves the user experience and immersion by having a position dependent rendering of the scene and the ability to touch the scene. This system uses depth maps to represent the geometry of the scene. Depth maps can be easily obtained on the rendering process or can be derived from the binocular-stereo images by calculating their horizontal disparity. This geometry is then used as an input to be rendered in a 3D display, do the haptic rendering calculations and have a position depending render of the scene. The author presents two main contributions. First, since the haptic devices have a finite work space and limited resolution, we used what we call detail mapping algorithms. These algorithms compress geometry information contained in a depth map, by reducing the contrast among pixels, in such a way that it can be rendered into a limited resolution display medium without losing any detail. Second, the unique combination of a depth camera as a motion capturing system, a 3D display and haptic device to enhance user experience. While developing this system we put special attention on the cost and availability of the hardware. We decided to use only off-the-shelf, mass consumer oriented hardware so our experiments can be easily implemented and replicated. As an additional benefit the total cost of the hardware did not exceed the one thousand dollars mark making it affordable for many individuals and institutions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Computer Engineering

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Year

2012

Author dc:creator

• Gomez Aguinaga, Mauricio

Contributors dc:contributor

• Sen, Pradeep
• Caudell, Thomas
• Kniss, Joe

• Haptic devices
• Three dimensional display systems
• Rendering (Computer graphics)
• Depth perception.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ece_etds/100

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalrepository.unm.edu:ece_etds-1099