Development and evaluation of a multimodal virtual environment for emulating product interfaces.

摘要

The research was to apply virtual environment technology to develop and evaluate product prototyping tools with a particular emphasis on emulating panel control interfaces. A virtual environment system comprising visual, aural and haptic displays was built to emulate a product's interfaces. The visual display used the video monitor of a graphics workstation to display a prototype of the product with its' manual control. The aural display played back recorded sound clips in synchrony with the motion of the user's interaction with the product interface. The haptic display, based on a controlled brushless DC (BLDC) motor with sensors, emulated the mechanical properties of a real device.;Research was also undertaken to study the influence of sensory cues and controller parameters to the overall perceived realism of the virtual environments. It was found that haptic cues play an important role in the overall perceived realism of a virtual environment. The fidelity of the virtual environment can be further enhanced if users can interact with multiple sensory cues. Experimental results also suggest that a generalized set of controller gain values can be applied on an individual basis to achieve the same level of haptic perception for different emulations.