Feel the inside: A haptic interface for navigating stress distribution inside objects

Understanding stress distributions over 3D models is a highly desired feature in many scientific and engineering fields. The stress is mathematically a second-order tensor, and it is typically visualized using either color maps, tensor glyphs, or streamlines. However, neither of these methods is physically intuitive to the end user, and they become even more awkward when dealing with the volumetric tensor field over a complicated 3D shape. In this paper, we present a virtual perception system, which leverages a multi-finger haptic interface to help users intuitively perceive 3D stress fields. Our system allows the user to navigate the interior of the 3D model freely and maps the stress tensor to the haptic rendering along the direction of the finger’s trajectory. Doing so provides user a natural and straightforward understanding of the stress distribution without interacting with the parameters in the mapped visual representations. Experimental results show that our system is preferred in navigating stress fields inside an object and is applicable for different design tasks.