A Tactile Computer Mouse for the Display of Surface Material Properties

We present a novel input/output device to display the tactile properties of surface materials. The proposed Tactile Computer Mouse (TCM) is equipped with a series of actuators that can create perceptually relevant tactile cues to a user. The display capabilities of our TCM match the major tactile dimensions in human surface material perception, namely, hardness, friction, warmth, microscopic roughness, and macroscopic roughness. The TCM also preserves necessary interaction capabilities of a typical computer mouse. In addition to the TCM design, we introduce data acquisition procedures and concepts that are necessary to derive a parametric representation of a surface material and further demonstrate the corresponding rendering approach on the TCM. We conducted subjective experiments to determine tactile property ratings of real materials, perceived property ratings using the TCM, and how precisely subjects match the real materials to corresponding virtual material representations using the TCM in the absence of visual and audible clues. Our experimental results show that our TCM successfully displays the five fundamental tactile dimensions and that the twenty participants were able to perceive the TCM-produced virtual surface material tactile sensations with a recognition rate of 89.6 percent for ten different materials.