A haptic three-dimensional shape display with three fingers grasping

The main goal of our research is to develop a haptic display that makes it possible to convey shapes, hardness, and textures of objects displayed on 3D TV. Our evolved device has three 5 mm diameter actuating spheres arranged in triangular geometry on each of three fingertips (thumb, index finger, middle finger). In this paper, we describe an overview of a novel haptic device and the first experimental results that twelve subjects had succeeded to recognize the size of cylinders and side geometry of a cuboid and a hexagonal prism.