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Holograms you can touch – U could soon shake a virtual colleague's hand (engineering) - C C - Sep 18, 2021
We created holograms you can touch – you could soon shake a virtual colleague's hand
https://theconversation.com/we-created-holograms-you-can-touch-you-could-soon-shake-a-virtual-colleagues-hand-167478
EXCERPTS: . . . My colleagues and I working in the University of Glasgow’s bendable electronics and sensing technologies research group have now developed a system of holograms of people using “aerohaptics”, creating feelings of touch with jets of air. Those jets of air deliver a sensation of touch on people’s fingers, hands and wrists.
In time, this could be developed to allow you to meet a virtual avatar of a colleague on the other side of the world and really feel their handshake. It could even be the first steps towards building something like a holodeck.
To create this feeling of touch we use affordable, commercially available parts to pair computer-generated graphics with carefully directed and controlled jets of air.
In some ways, it’s a step beyond the current generation of virtual reality, which usually requires a headset to deliver 3D graphics and smart gloves or handheld controllers to provide haptic feedback, a stimulation that feels like touch. Most of the wearable gadgets-based approaches are limited to controlling the virtual object that is being displayed.
Controlling a virtual object doesn’t give the feeling that you would experience when two people touch. The addition of an artificial touch sensation can deliver the additional dimension without having to wear gloves to feel objects, and so feels much more natural.
Our research uses graphics that provide the illusion of a 3D virtual image. It’s a modern variation on a 19th-century illusion technique known as Pepper’s Ghost, which thrilled Victorian theatregoers with visions of the supernatural onstage.
The systems uses glass and mirrors to make a two-dimensional image appear to hover in space without the need for any additional equipment. And our haptic feedback is created with nothing but air.
[...] One of the ways we’ve demonstrated the capabilities of the “aerohaptic” system is with an interactive projection of a basketball, which can be convincingly touched, rolled and bounced. The touch feedback from air jets from the system is also modulated based on the virtual surface of the basketball, allowing users to feel the rounded shape of the ball as it rolls from their fingertips when they bounce it and the slap in their palm when it returns.
[...] While we don’t expect to be delivering a full Star Trek holodeck experience in the near future, we’re already boldly going in new directions to add additional functions to the system. Soon, we expect to be able to modify the temperature of the airflow to allow users to feel hot or cold surfaces. We’re also exploring the possibility of adding scents to the airflow, deepening the illusion of virtual objects by allowing users to smell as well as touch them... (MORE - missing details)