13th January 2006, 10:15 AM
My school's graphics lab had one of those 3D mouse devices DJ is talking about. I used it a couple times. We had it hooked up to the SGI boxes, so usually students weren't allowed in the lab alone as it contained hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment. Anyway...
It was pretty cool. It was like a box with a robot arm on it, and you put your finger into the end of the arm. On the screen was a simple rubber ball with an image of a "finger" touching the ball. As you pulled your figner away, the ball stretched and the arm provided resistance that made it harder to pull. It was very simple, but cool to interact with.
I also learned about research being done with advanced force feedback to train medical students. They want to practice virtual surgery by providing the students with a head mounted display of the surgery area and a "knife" (or whatever other tools they would be using) that is really just a controller. As the student cuts through skin, cartillege, blood vessels, bone, etc, the "knife" would respond realistically. I heard about this a couple years ago and at the time it sounded like they were pretty far along with the idea.
So none of that is exactly the same as what we are hoping for, but it does show you that the research has been underway for a while and could be farther along than anyone really thinks.
It was pretty cool. It was like a box with a robot arm on it, and you put your finger into the end of the arm. On the screen was a simple rubber ball with an image of a "finger" touching the ball. As you pulled your figner away, the ball stretched and the arm provided resistance that made it harder to pull. It was very simple, but cool to interact with.
I also learned about research being done with advanced force feedback to train medical students. They want to practice virtual surgery by providing the students with a head mounted display of the surgery area and a "knife" (or whatever other tools they would be using) that is really just a controller. As the student cuts through skin, cartillege, blood vessels, bone, etc, the "knife" would respond realistically. I heard about this a couple years ago and at the time it sounded like they were pretty far along with the idea.
So none of that is exactly the same as what we are hoping for, but it does show you that the research has been underway for a while and could be farther along than anyone really thinks.