Press. voanews.com
Virtual reality
allows the user to enter a different world through sight and sound. Several
researchers and companies are adding a third element to the virtual experience:
the sense of touch. Researchers in haptics, meaning the feeling of touch, are
incorporating this sense into virtual reality with real-world applications.
French company
Go Touch VR created a device called VRtouch that straps onto the fingertips.
The device applies varying pressure to the fingertips that correlates to what
the user is seeing, touching and lifting in the virtual world. “That will open
enormous possibilities,” said Eric Vezzoli, co-founder of Go Touch VR. Applications
for the touch device include allowing users to undergo training in a safe
virtual environment.
Vezzoli said
strapping three of the VR touch devices on each hand — the thumb, forefinger
and middle finger — are ideal. “We can use up to six fingers. Why? Because
three fingers are enough to manipulate light objects. For example, if you’re
writing, you use just three fingers. But (in) VR, there’s no mass, there’s no
weight. So, just three fingers is just enough,” Vezzoli said.
Training in
virtual reality with the sense of touch may include surgical preparation in a
medical procedure or learning in an industrial setting. A different application
can be found in the advertising world. “You can, for example, visit an
apartment — virtual apartment. You can open a cabinet. You can touch the bed —
feel its softness, and that generates a physical connection with the buyer that
can increase the chance of sale,” said Vezzoli. The company’s clients include
the carmaker BMW. Go Touch VR hopes its haptic device will interest content
producers, major corporations and the military, as virtual reality is more
widely used in the real world.