Activecursor - what you see is what you feel.

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Tactile sensations like stickiness, touch, or mass can simulated by applying tiny displacements upon the cursor movements. Exploiting the domination of the visual over the haptic domain towards a more natural interface.

In our physical world, the kinetic behaviour of objects looks self-evident. It informs about the physical properties of an object. If you open a door you will feel a certain resistance that tells you something about the door, how it is placed and what it is made of. When you lift a box you will feel whether the box is full or empty. With computers, it is different. There is a mouse to click your finger on, a flat screen to look at and a two small speakers. From a sensorial point of view, desktop computers are extremely limited machines with hardly any physicality to it. Objects on your computerdesktop lack any bodily properties. Although this weightlessness of cyberspace has some significant advantages, physical information can be a powerful way of communicating. We believe that improvements in this domain could lead to more natural computer interfaces. With this mindset, we designed and implemented a series of experimental interaction styles. Among them, the active cursor, a method of inducing haptic effects with tiny cursor displacements.

Renaissance tricks
If we compare the computer screen with the Renaissance canvas, the limitations and goals show some remarkable similarities. Both painters and interface designers are constrained to a flat and square canvas. Their goal is to represent or reflect our rich world of sensations within these limitations. Renaissance painters invented tricks like perspective, sfumato and tromp d'oeil to get the job done. We aim at doing similar work for the contemporary computer interfaces. The role of movement in interactive applications is underestimated. Whereas animation of independent objects is properly studied and applied in motion cinema, hardly any research was focussed on animation in direct interaction with a user. Tactile sensations like stickiness, touch, or mass can be induced by interactive animations. This sense of touch is an illusion, based upon the domination of the visual over the haptic domain. Applying tiny displacements upon the cursor movements can simulate the tactile effects. The cursor is displaced as if there are real forces working on the mouse. The user sees this on the computer screen and tends to 'feel' it. Among the virtual haptic objects we created are 'holes' and 'hills'. If the cursor rolls over a hole, it is dragged towards the centre. When rolling over a hill, the cursor is dragged out of the centre. Due to these cursor displacements a hole becomes an easily accessible part of the screen whereas a hill area is hard to access. This sort physical information communicates in a very direct and intuitive way. And you can create any 3d slope you want.

Simulate your new computer on your old computer.
We simulated haptic sensations within a standard GUI context. This opens up a whole range of interface design possibilities. Physical information could become an extra communication channel with the user. Our method works on any cursor controlled interface. We also think that manufacturers of haptic devices might benefit from our work. Although the advantages are clear, force feedback devices have not made it to your average desktop. It might be because of the lack of software applications for these devices. And software is scarce because people do not have force feedback devices at their homes. Our simulated force feedback principle could break this cycle. We have found that, although the effect of simulated touch is not as vivid as real force feedback, it can be used to simulate most the functions of a real force feedback device. Manufacturers of haptic devices can add a driver to their device that simulates the device in a standard GUI. If interaction designers can assume the availability of a haptic device (simulated by cursor displacements or not), use of physical information can grow to become a serious factor in interaction design.

Koert van Mensvoort (email)

Links to related work
-Powercursor.com is a software toolkit in Flash for designing interfaces with optically simulated haptic feedback.
-What you see is what you feel Paper about active cursor (pdf document).
-Twoholes Tiny activecursor game
-Windowpoll Testing different behaviors of the windowbuttons. Please pick your favorite.
-Cursor trajectory prediction with a genetic algorithm Can your computer predict where you try to put your cursor?
-Buttonpoll The buttons all look the same. But, they differ in their feel and behaviour.
-Stickybutton Tiny experiment with expression of substance.

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	home \| work \| email Tactile sensations like stickiness, touch, or mass can simulated by applying tiny displacements upon the cursor movements. Exploiting the domination of the visual over the haptic domain towards a more natural interface. In our physical world, the kinetic behaviour of objects looks self-evident. It informs about the physical properties of an object. If you open a door you will feel a certain resistance that tells you something about the door, how it is placed and what it is made of. When you lift a box you will feel whether the box is full or empty. With computers, it is different. There is a mouse to click your finger on, a flat screen to look at and a two small speakers. From a sensorial point of view, desktop computers are extremely limited machines with hardly any physicality to it. Objects on your computerdesktop lack any bodily properties. Although this weightlessness of cyberspace has some significant advantages, physical information can be a powerful way of communicating. We believe that improvements in this domain could lead to more natural computer interfaces. With this mindset, we designed and implemented a series of experimental interaction styles. Among them, the active cursor, a method of inducing haptic effects with tiny cursor displacements. Renaissance tricks If we compare the computer screen with the Renaissance canvas, the limitations and goals show some remarkable similarities. Both painters and interface designers are constrained to a flat and square canvas. Their goal is to represent or reflect our rich world of sensations within these limitations. Renaissance painters invented tricks like perspective, sfumato and tromp d'oeil to get the job done. We aim at doing similar work for the contemporary computer interfaces. The role of movement in interactive applications is underestimated. Whereas animation of independent objects is properly studied and applied in motion cinema, hardly any research was focussed on animation in direct interaction with a user. Tactile sensations like stickiness, touch, or mass can be induced by interactive animations. This sense of touch is an illusion, based upon the domination of the visual over the haptic domain. Applying tiny displacements upon the cursor movements can simulate the tactile effects. The cursor is displaced as if there are real forces working on the mouse. The user sees this on the computer screen and tends to 'feel' it. Among the virtual haptic objects we created are 'holes' and 'hills'. If the cursor rolls over a hole, it is dragged towards the centre. When rolling over a hill, the cursor is dragged out of the centre. Due to these cursor displacements a hole becomes an easily accessible part of the screen whereas a hill area is hard to access. This sort physical information communicates in a very direct and intuitive way. And you can create any 3d slope you want. Simulate your new computer on your old computer. We simulated haptic sensations within a standard GUI context. This opens up a whole range of interface design possibilities. Physical information could become an extra communication channel with the user. Our method works on any cursor controlled interface. We also think that manufacturers of haptic devices might benefit from our work. Although the advantages are clear, force feedback devices have not made it to your average desktop. It might be because of the lack of software applications for these devices. And software is scarce because people do not have force feedback devices at their homes. Our simulated force feedback principle could break this cycle. We have found that, although the effect of simulated touch is not as vivid as real force feedback, it can be used to simulate most the functions of a real force feedback device. Manufacturers of haptic devices can add a driver to their device that simulates the device in a standard GUI. If interaction designers can assume the availability of a haptic device (simulated by cursor displacements or not), use of physical information can grow to become a serious factor in interaction design. Koert van Mensvoort (email) Links to related work -Powercursor.com is a software toolkit in Flash for designing interfaces with optically simulated haptic feedback. -What you see is what you feel Paper about active cursor (pdf document). -Twoholes Tiny activecursor game -Windowpoll Testing different behaviors of the windowbuttons. Please pick your favorite. -Cursor trajectory prediction with a genetic algorithm Can your computer predict where you try to put your cursor? -Buttonpoll The buttons all look the same. But, they differ in their feel and behaviour. -Stickybutton Tiny experiment with expression of substance. home \| work \| email