Haptics (Robotics for Human-Computer Interaction), Information Visualization, Immersive Arts
Our interactions with multimedia displays are constrained by screens, keyboards and pointers. Haptics leverage our sense of touch in human-computer interaction, building upon technologies also employed in robotics (sensors, actuators). Tactile screens enable a fraction of the population who can afford and access them to interact with multiple fingers on millions of pixels. However, these displays generate feedback that is not very stimulating for our sense of touch as they embed a single source of actuation. Force-feedback haptic interfaces stimulate a wider range of our sense of touch (not only tactile, but also proprioceptive, and kinesthetic) but most commercially-available devices offer a single pointer per hand for interaction. Emerging fabrication techniques for haptic materials offer perspectives in miniaturization and better resolutions but require industrial processes for their manufacturing that are not yet widespread in fab labs. My vision is to explore displays with higher dynamics for touch and better preserving the depth of information. I envision that future multimedia displays will embed rendering and interaction at the scale of materials, notably that haptic feedback granularity will reach a resolution closer to the visual pixel. My team contributes to enabling this vision from the lens of computer science, combining the fields of human-computer interaction (haptics) and (multimedia) information visualization, in collaboration with other disciplines such as material science, electrical and mechanical engineering. Our mission aims at improving the granularity of interaction in multisensory and multimedia applications, by increasing their degrees of freedom in the interaction with their displays.