From acraig@ncsa.uiuc.edu Fri Jul 31 12:42:47 1998 Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 09:57:36 -0500 (CDT) From: acraig@ncsa.uiuc.edu To: vice@ncsa.uiuc.edu Subject: SIGGRAPH I/O devices Hi - Here are the things I observed that I thought were interesting at SIGGRAPH according to my category "Novel I/O Devices" I have further info on all of these in case anyone is interested. If anyone knows of something I missed or that should be listed, please send it to me and I will add it to the list. Alan 1998 SIGGRAPH report on novel I/O devices Alan Craig - 7/28/98 This year, the I/O devices that I found interesting fell into one of several categories: Force feedback devices Novel input devices Unencumbered stereo output devices Milling machines Force feedback devices I saw three interesting force feedback devices. HAPTECH The haptech product (www.haptech.com) was an interesting pen based force feedback device. In practice it is sort of like a 2 dimensional case of the Phantom. It provides input information of where the pen is positioned and provides force back to the participant according to where the pen is positioned. They do not currently have plans for a three dimensional device. They are looking for application developers. My first impression is that this device could be useful for aiding in universal access to web pages, and / or two dimensional imagery. I can also envision a number of educational applications. They are planning the list price to be $695.00. ---------------------------------------------- CyberGrasp - Virtual Technologies Inc. The cybergrasp glove www.virtex.com is the one that does force feedback by attaching rings to your fingers, and then pulling on the rings via speedometer type cables. Bill Sherman showed a video of this device at a group meeting once. I tried the cybergrasp out and it was very interesting. Unfortunately it does not provide a fingertip tactile sensation, so I got more the impression of someone trying to prevent me from grasping something rather than that I was grasping something. I think this is a step in the right direction. Bill took some video of me using this device. ----------------------------------------- FEELit Mouse www.immerse.com The Feelit mouse is a mouse that does force feedback and vibrations in two dimensions. They are releasing it to developers. I got them to give me the documentation for their API. They are looking for developers. I thought it would be good for universal access to web pages and images, as well as educational (eg physics) applications. This will list for $140.00 when released. ======================== Novel input devices TouchCube ITU Reaearch, Inc. www.ituresearch.com The TouchCube was a device for doing 6DOF input to a workstation or other device. It was a cube that had surfaces like the old macintosh touch panels on the laptop. By touching the various sides of the cube and sliding your fingers you can do fairly intuitive manipilations. By pressing on different panels simultaneously you can put the device into different modes. It seems like it would take some learning, but seemed to have potential as a 3D input device. He had not set a price yet. -------------------------------------- WACOM Wacom was showing a pen based input tablet that displayed on the tablet itself, thus allowing one to draw and write intuitively. It was a very thin tablet like a wacom tablet, but it displayed the computer screen right on the tablet. The PL-300v LCD display tablet is $2499.00 --------------------------------------- Virtual 3D Technologies Corp www.virtual3Dtech.com They had a three D scanner they were showing that used just one camera to make the 3D mesh. ---------------------------------------- MicroScribe-3D IMMERSION Corporation www.immerse.com This was a 3D digitizing device that looks sort of like a Phantom. $1995.00 ----------------------------------------- LipsInk GANYMEDIA www.ganymedia.com This was a device you wore on your head that puts a camera in front of your lips and does image processing to read the shape of your lips. They were showing it as a device to make characters lips animate correctly and easily. I was thinking it could be used for lip reading for universal access, or as an aid to speech input (give the speech recognizer extra information) Unfortunately, it currently requires the user to paint their lips blue. =========================== Unencumbered Stereo output displays Dresden 3D (D4D) 21"plasma auto stereo monitor. http://kastor.inf.tu-dresden.de/D4D/ This was cool. It allowed totally unencumbered stereo display at the desktop. He was using two cameras to ascertain where the viewers eyes are, and displaying the images appropriately. The left and right eye images are displayed simultaneously in alternating columns, and then a prism grating is used to ensure that each eye sees the correct view. Even columns go to the left eye, and odd columns go to the right. It took a very short period of time for the image to "pop" for me, and then it was very effective. It worked very nicely for rotations, animations, etc. If you translate your head horizontally it took another brief time for the image to work correctly again. You had to sit the right distance from the monitor. It is truly a one person device. If you looked while someone else was doing it it didn't do well at all. They have two prototypes and are looking for application development partners as well as partners to produce the device. He claims they can make copies of the prototypes in short order. =========================== MILLING Machines There were a couple milling machines that create 3D objects from computer models - thus rendering in the real world. These ranged from $1000 - 40,000. I thought the Roland device was very interesting at $1000.00 ------------------------------------------------ 3D Bit Cube - GENEX www.jikuhanso.com/3DBC/index.html While not actually a milling machine, the 3D Bit cube was interesting. It allowed you to create an artwork in a cube of glass (?) from a 3D model. It caused a tiny crack at the point where two laser beams intersect. The resulting cuttings in the glass cube were very beautiful.