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Technology

Sculpting Interface Prototype 133

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-sculpt-53-words-per-minute dept.
uw_dwarf writes "Now you can play with Play-Doh and your computer at the same time. Folks at the State University of New York at Buffalo have demonstrated another tactile interface to the computer: a glove with a sensor to determine pressure and direction in 3-space as the user works with a nice malleable substance. I'm torn between 'cool!' and 'scary!'"
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Sculpting Interface Prototype More

Sculpting Interface Prototype

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  • Playboy Research Labs. (Score:5, Funny)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:18PM (#9710202)
    The technology utilizes a ModelGlove developed by the researchers to record the force exerted by hand when depressing and shaping a block of clay. This force-feedback information, as well as information on hand position and speed of fingertip motion, is instantaneously communicated to a personal computer where a virtual block of clay -- possessing characteristics mimicking the physical properties of the clay -- is shaped precisely to the contouring of the actual clay.

    The next generation of the ModelGlove will have sensors on all fingers and on the palm of the hand to give users full finger control of virtual clay.

    "Touch is the next frontier in the evolution of virtual reality," Kesavadas says. "Most virtual-reality technologies to this point have focused on 3D visualization, but the sense of touch may be the most powerful way to make virtual reality more real."

    "I'm torn between hot and sexy", said Hugh Heffner when asked about this interactive research project being worked on at the Playboy Research Labs ;-)
    • You know, it sounds like they're going to make a fortune selling the clay. Heck...they could probably give the gloves and software away for free.

      After all, once their preformulated clay gets impurities from use, it's characteristics are going to be less and less like those of the clay the software is simulating.

      Over time, your model on screen is going to appear less and less like the stuff you've been working on with your hands.

    • Re:Playboy Research Labs. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dr_canak ( 593415 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @04:43PM (#9711032)
      Ya know,

      you're probably not far off. The porn industry seems to find creative ways to spend and make money on technology.

      I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the internet porn industry completely jump on board something like this. People spend significant sums of money now to chat, watch, and "participate" in internet sex. Imagine the first internet porn company to market that sells a device that you put on your genitalia, and said device is controlled from the other end using one of these glove things. Certainly whatever data is being transmitted to manipulate a screen object could just as easily be exported out to control an external device. The difference here of course is the fine level of control and detail they seem to be achieving.

      Now you're talking a whole 'nother level of interaction which i think people would pay a good sum of money for, given it could be done in the privacy of their own home.

      jeff

  • And in other news.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by RPI Geek ( 640282 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:19PM (#9710213) Journal
    Stocks soar in the interactive porn industry.

  • Self abuse freaks rejoice (Score:3, Funny)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:20PM (#9710222) Homepage Journal
    "... have demonstrated another tactile interface to the computer: a glove with a sensor to determine pressure and direction in 3-space as the user works with a nice malleable substance."

  • It has to be said (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sean80 ( 567340 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:21PM (#9710230)
    In the near future, I see an explosion of 3D models of penises.

    Oh. dear. God.

  • As an pedantic alum... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GersonK ( 541726 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:21PM (#9710233) Homepage
    ...I'll point out that they prefer to be called just plain "University at Buffalo" now, none of that low class SUNY stuff (even though they still are part of the SUNY system).

    • Re:As an pedantic alum... (Score:5, Funny)

      by dbleoslow ( 650429 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:38PM (#9710417)
      As a fellow alum I prefer to call UB "a freezing cold campus with a plethora of fierce windtunnels." I once saw a girl get blown into a moving vehicle. She wasn't hurt so it's okay to laugh :)
    • Many of the campuses are inching away from the SUNY moniker. When I was a freshman there, SUNY Plattsburgh magically became Plattsburgh State University.
    • Interestingly (OT, just for the record; I'll be nice and post without the bonus), the same thing is happening with SUNY Stony Brook. Not only is it a sin to call it "SUNY" these days, but they're actually trying to go private (state isn't being to nice about it) within the next few years. Just in time for me to get my degree and slip out right before tuition goes through the roof.

  • 3 comments in... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:22PM (#9710241)
    And any pr0n joke I make is already redundant. Oh well, if there was any doubt as to how the geek mind worked...

  • the hype (Score:4, Informative)

    by kris_lang ( 466170 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:23PM (#9710254)
    Boy oh boy.

    I remember getting an invite over to V.P.L. (Virtual Propulsion Laboratories) back when I had a friend who was working at nearby Oracle.
    The demo: they had a virtual reality glove, something which you put your hand in and moved in free space to manipulate objects in virtual reality. Yeah, yeah, I know SUNYAB has made some incremental changes and added some haptic feedback, but please, VPL had started this in the pre-boom days of Silicon Valley back in the early 1990's.
    • And for that matter, the U.S. Military is reputed to already be using this technology to implement virtual switches in some aircraft - perhaps it was just part of the Comanche technology platform though. Actually, it might not be THIS technology - it uses piezo elements embedded in the fingertips of gloves vibrated at specified rates, which give a feeling of pressure.
    • There have been many implimentations of "virtual reality gloves" in the past. Thie on is unique not because of haptic feedback (it's been done before, too), but because of it's ability to model sub-surface feedback. An application that jumps to mind: "virtual" diagnosis. Previously I don't think it was possible to model something inside something else for use with these gloves (like, for example, an organ inside a person).

    • Re:the hype (Score:3, Interesting)

      by southpolesammy ( 150094 )
      Ummm, not quite what they're saying. What I believe this device is doing is translating the physical analog experience into a virtual digital representation. Think of it more like recording a movie rather than playing it back.

      This has great applications if the forces required to perform a certain function can be recorded and then recreated in a simulation. With that capability, we could record Tiger Woods swinging a golf club and then teach new golfers how to emulate his style by actually feeling what h

  • Nintendo was here first... (Score:4, Informative)

    by cuzality ( 696718 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:23PM (#9710256) Journal
    "The Power Glove [rolandit.com] has to be one of the most innovative and least useful of all peripherals. R.O.B. may be more pointless from a gaming perspective, but there wasn't as much to R.O.B.

    The Power Glove along with the sensors that were to be placed around your TV supposedly allowed you to control the game through virtual reality."
  • ooohhhh, digital boobies.
    • Guilty as charged.

      Seriously though, name one media technology that wasn't almost instantly used for Porn.

  • This is great! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Imagine the advances in the field of play-dohnamics! I know of several thought experiments in this field that can be now tested experimentally. There must be quite a buzz in the play doh scientific community. One noted scientist had this to say, "Gah, gah, goo, goo!" Unfortunately, he had to run of for a game of peekaboo.

  • The field of haptics? (Score:4, Funny)

    by e9th ( 652576 ) <e9th@tupo[ ].com ['dex' in gap]> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:29PM (#9710310)
    I barely knew it was a word. Now I find out it's a field.

  • Has Potential (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TaintedPastry ( 790856 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:31PM (#9710347)
    Porn jokes aside...

    ...this could develop into a wonderful device for the physically disabled geeks out there.

    Certain hand/arm disformaties or Nuerological Degeneration diseases can have their affect on the use a of a PC nullified with proper application of this tool (as opposed to attention/finger dexterity demanding keyboards and mice).

    Unfortunately, I doubt the funding is out there to adopt this technology to disabled persons uses, much less actually get it to them :-\ .

    • Unfortunately, I doubt the funding is out there to adopt this technology to disabled persons uses, much less actually get it to them

      If it is a haptic device, then it should only be a matter of programming to adapt it for disabled people. There are people who would adopt technology for disabled use [slashdot.org] out there anyway, who will program for free.

    • A wider application would be wearable computing. Imagine typing (or using other hand/arm motions) in midair like the people in Minority Report or Earth: Final Conflict, except the interface is built into your gloves and augmented reality glasses.

      Also, there is funding for this sort of thing; one of the people I know at Georgia Tech's Contextual Computing Group [gatech.edu] (headed by Thad Starner [gatech.edu] from MIT's media lab) is working on mobile sign language recognition [gatech.edu]. In fact, having the signer wear one of these gloves
    • That was my first thought also,

      but working on a spinal cord unit where we see some very seriously impaired individuals, i've yet to see someone who couldn't use a computer given the adaptive technology that exists already. Motivation aside, even high level quads can do just about anything with a computer with enough training. Off the top of my head, i'm not sure how this particular technology would be a huge leap forward for disabled people.

      jeff
  • UNC had done some work sometime back on using Haptic Models for helping paintings --

    dAb: Interactive Haptic Painting with 3D Virtual Brushes [unc.edu].

    This project reminds me of that, extended to 3D with a few more features and capabilities thrown in.
    • Yes, I think this is very close in concept. The haptic painting you link to is an effort to give an artist with painting skills a "virtual" tool that is similar enough to allow immediate creation of the digital art. The result may not be all that different than doing a painting and scanning the result, but what if one is painting something that doesn't physically exist (modeled figure, a canvas the size of Manhattan).

      Anyway, thanks for posting the link, the video is well worth downloading.

  • doesn't help us folks who have no talent, maybe if they hooked up CAD to a nice playdoh/clay sculptor :)
  • I could do a lot with that. Maybe I might be able to pay for one eventually, too.

  • Do you still need the clay? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 192939495969798999 ( 58312 ) <infoNO@SPAMdevinmoore.com> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:45PM (#9710485) Homepage Journal
    "...virtual block of clay -- possessing characteristics mimicking the physical properties of the clay -- is shaped precisely to the contouring of the actual clay."

    The actual clay... meaning you still have to have clay? That's all well and good, but the biggest problem to working with clay and getting the shape onto the computer is getting clay all over your $K's worth of interface devices. I'd like to see the force feedback go into the glove, so I can just "model" virtual clay, sans real clay.
    • You know, that problem could be solved with cheap disposable surgical gloves.
    • That's all well and good, but the biggest problem to working with clay and getting the shape onto the computer is getting clay all over your $K's worth of interface devices.

      Wrap the clay in saran wrap.

    • The actual clay... meaning you still have to have clay?

      Yes. The whole point of this experiment is to produce better models of soft substances so that they can be used with _other_ types of interface realistically. The glove itself has no feedback characteristics - it's just a measuring device, telling the host computer what happens when you press *this* hard in *that* direction on the target substance (which among other things requires it to build an internal picture of what the current shape of the clay

  • Maybe this will help... (Score:5, Informative)

    by marnargulus ( 776948 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @03:48PM (#9710513)
    It seems some of you are confused as to what this is. From what I see, it using pressure sensors, and position sensors, combines them, and produces a 3D image (similar to one in a CAD program). This image can then be used later on, either to look at the object with out it being there, or to have as a design. This is not in any way the other way around. Virtual objects do not put FORCE on the GLOVE. You will not "feel" any thing from it. That would not work.
    Lets look at this from a physics standpoint. It is a glove with wires coming out. There are no air bags to fill, no rockets to fire, and nothing to push your hand with. If you look at the picture you can see that. From this, we can assume the glove can not put force on your hand to move it. So no, VR sextoys, or objects won't really come from this.
    What will come from this is faster design. A sculptor who is very good at making models in clay, may very well be horrible with CAD. They can model in real clay, using this glove, and it will make a CAD of the actual design he made. They can now mass produce exactly what he made. This basically flips the way they make cars around. From what I've seen, they model it, then make a clay mockup.
    • There are very good scanning systems that can build a model (at least, the external skin) of an object from a 3-D object.

      In the past, you had a robotic arm, and you'd have to move it along the surface, or to specific points along a grid that had been drawn on the object, so the computer taking the recordings could use sensors to determine the angle of each of the joints, and calculate where in space the tip of the arm was.

      Laser range finders have made that obsolete, and they can automate the whole system
    • Exactly, this is a continuation in the efforts to create more intuitive methods of getting data from people into computers. Keyboard...Mouse...Flat Scanners...3D Scanners...

      These are all ways of allowing thoughts and sights to be moved into digital space. This article particularly reminded me of "SandScape" a project at the MIT Tangible Media group in which users can manipulate a sand surface, and the computer senses the changes in the contours of the surface, recomputes a model and then displays the mod

    • Lets look at this from a physics standpoint. It is a glove with wires coming out. There are ...no rockets to fire...

      Hey, credit where credit is due! That's my idea [halfbakery.com]!

      BTW, note the similarity of the actual scuplting system to this proposal [halfbakery.com].

      That which has been is what will be,
      That which is done is what will be done,
      And there is nothing new under the sun.

      --

      Ecclesiastes 1:9 [gospelcom.net]

  • I've got an idea for some surfaces that might need mapping, for the health of my girlfriend of course.
  • I could see how this could be used to perform some "detective" work elsewhere - connect via RF instead of serial, and now you have a surface checker that is not limited to 7ft from the PC (this assumes, of course, that it is not really a glove on your hand either). But could it be modified to enter areas that are too dangerous for humans to enter? Mount it on a small roving robot, and maybe it could inspect those pesky tiles on the space shuttle??
    • Mount it on a small roving robot, and maybe it could inspect those pesky tiles on the space shuttle??


      THANK YOU for that last sentence. All the damn porn jokes made my mind go in a completely different direction and quite frankly, it was becoming a bit scary ;)
  • When I was checking out Johns Hopkins mechanical engineering grad. program, they seemed to have a lot of interesting haptics research...

    In my opinion, the best outlet for this sort of thing would be in medicine, where med students could learn how to do operations without killing anyone, and where surgeries could be made more precise as the surgeon worked remotely and his hand tremors were filtered out.
  • Let's all go to the Feelies!

  • This is a paper from Siggraph 2000 about interfacing computers with modeling clay and lego style blocks:

    http://www.merl.com/papers/TR2000-13/ [merl.com]
  • I Love The Glove.
  • I give it about 3 weeks from the first release of the tech to the first seedy Russian server starts offering 'Br1tney_spear5.sculpt' to go with that new whole-body 'sculpting suit' certain 'adult-oriented vendors' will come out with ;) ...and about 3 minutes before the first release of the user shorts the whole damn thing.

  • You're thinking all wrong! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TotemPopper ( 797340 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @07:15PM (#9712313)
    I just love how the nerds brain works. One person mentions pr0n and that's all everyone can talk about. I was sure someone in the /. community would have noticed this about it: If this product gets marketed, it could mean extreme changes in one of our favorite industries, (no, not pr0n) gaming. Slip one of these on you could easily create the majority of 3D models for a game. Need a toaster? Just run your fingers over one and BAM! you have your model. This could cut a lot of time out of making games so they could focus on other parts of the process. (I wonder what this will do to copyright laws. e.g. "You have a copy of our brand of toaster on your computer! We're gonna sue you")
    Just my two cents. -TP
  • This seems like a good way to have the shooting arcade games at home. You could have a small rifle/pistol/generic platic model loaded with sencors. Then you could calibrate it on your screen shooting various places, a fake laser sight, whatever.

    This would be pretty cool to have to press the trigger just the right ammount, bolt action rifle, settings changing on the gun(burst,semi,full auto).
    • Yes, because this is highly complicated to do with an ordinary pressure sensitive switch and some regular switches. Boy-o-boy will this new invention revolutionize the home shooting arcade games at home.
  • Patents on User Interfaces should not be allowed. The field of User Interfaces requires absolute freedom of innovation. I strongly condemn the government for sanctioning impediments to innovation and to the absolute freedom of use in all areas of User Interfaces.
  • How are haptic models used in regards to the research and building of Artificially Intelligent Robots? I know programming a computer with language capability is probably the biggest obstacle one faces in robotics, but haptics seems like a spectacular way for a robot to "get a feel" for it's surroundings.
  • On the screen cap, the title bar said "Ameya Glui", this just sounds scarier then GUI... It sounds.... sticky :P
  • just what we need for interfacing with the looking glass desktop... all those moaning about how we had no real means of interacting with 3D desktop objects can now shut up...

    and now we can have the satisfaction of being able to "crumple up" a file when chucking it into the recycle bin and you can slap a program window when it starts misbehaving... just want two gloves and a virtual keyboard and you could get feedback when you press a virtual key...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • For those who have never worked with nurbs or even know what nurbs are, nurbs are an alternative approach to modeling, that instead of dealing with individual polygons, you work with curves that form surfaces, which at render-time are converted to polygons. Nurbs are mostly used for engineering applications, such as car designs, furniture, etc where precision is absolutely essential. However, nurbs are not without their own challenges, most notable that it is difficult to create models that are entirely clo

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