High-fidelity recording, compression, and replay of visual-haptic telepresence sessions

In this paper, we propose a novel framework for the efficient recording and playback of visual-haptic telepresence sessions. During recording, all involved modalities are synchronously encoded and stored. During replay, interaction with the tele-environment is no longer possible and the displayed force feedback does not relate to the user's interaction anymore. Furthermore, position guidance by applying force-feedback prevents the presentation of the recorded haptic impressions. In our experiments, we have discovered that the human operator can easily associate the previously recorded movements and actions by following the endeffector position of the teleoperator in the displayed visual recording and relate the presented force feedback to its observation. We describe and investigate this observation which allows the user to immerse into the previously recorded telemanipulation session. Conducted psychophysical experiments investigate the performance of our framework in conjunction with perceptual offline coding for haptic signals. Our user studies reveal that our approach can provide high-fidelity visual-haptic experiences for learning, entertainment and/or performance analysis purposes.