Virtual Clay
You may soon be able to reach out and manipulate clay in cyberspace, thanks to a new tool for transmitting touch to the virtual world.
"This technology will give product designers, or even artists, a tool that will allow them to touch, shape, and manipulate virtual objects just as they would with actual clay models or sculptures," says Thenkurussi Kesavadas, director of the University at Buffalo's Virtual Reality Lab.
The virtual clay sculpting system replicates in real time the physical act of sculpting a block of clay. The computer generates a 3-D electronic shape that can then be fine-tuned for product design.
The designer uses a "ModelGlove" that records the force exerted by the hand when depressing and shaping a block of clay. The force-feedback information, hand position, speed of fingertip motion, and other information are communicated instantaneously to a computer, where the virtual clay is shaped precisely to the contouring of the actual clay.
The technique promises not only to allow for more-intuitive design than is possible with current mouse-based computer prototyping devices, but also to make virtual reality more realistic.
"The most natural tool for a designer is his or her hand," says Kesavadas. "Touch is the next frontier in the evolution of virtual reality. Most virtual-reality technologies to this point have focused on 3-D visualization, but the sense of touch may be the most powerful way to make virtual reality more real." [via the University of Buffalo website.]
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