Haptic and sound interface for shape rendering

This paper presents a system for the evaluation of the shape of aesthetic products. The evaluation of shapes is based on characteristic curves, which is a typical practice in the industrial design domain. The system, inspired by characteristic curves, is based on a haptic strip that conforms to a curve that the designer wishes to feel, explore, and analyze by physically touching it. The haptic strip is an innovative solution in the haptics domain, although it has some limitations concerning the domain of curves that can be actually represented. In order to extend this domain and make users feel the various curve features, for example curvature discontinuities, sound has been exploited as an additional information modality.