Shared Reality Lab

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The Natural Interactive Walking project investigates new technologies for multimodal interaction with virtual ground surfaces. Specifically, this involves research into the integrated and interchangeable use of the haptic and auditory modality in floor interfaces, and for the synergy of perception and action in capturing and guiding human walking. The project is developing efficient techniques for closed loop interaction via walking in real, augmented environments. Validation is carried out through experiments dealing with fundamental aspects of human multisensory perception of materials via contact interactions in walking, and usability of the specific virtual interaction methods developed. The aim is to enable the transfer of skills that have been learned previously in everyday tasks associated with walking to new interactive settings, where multi-sensory feedback and sensory substitution can be exploited to create unitary multimodal percepts of virtual ground surfaces.

Background

The research was initially undertaken within a three-year (2008–2011) joint European project with partners at Université Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie (France), University of Verona (Italy), INRIA-IRISA (France), and Aalborg University (Denmark), and local collaborators including B. Giordano and S. McAdams of the Music Technology area at McGill University.
Funding was provided by the Ministère du Développement économique, de l’Innovation et de l’Exportation (Québec) in coordination with the European Commission Seventh Framework FET-OPEN project NIW: Natural Interactive Walking (no. 222107).
Additional support was provided by a CIRMMT student research project award (2006–2008, Y. Visell supervised by J. Cooperstock, M. Wanderley).

Video Clips

Recent Publications

Vibrotactile Rendering of Splashing Fluids.
Cirio, G., Marchal, M., Lécuyer, A., and Cooperstock, J. R. Transactions on Haptics, 6(1):117-122. 2013.
Modeling of Lower Limbs for Vibrotactile Compensation.
Otis, M., Millet, G., Beniak, S., Cooperstock, J. R. (2011). CMBEC.
Initial Development of a Variable-Friction Floor Surface.
Millet, G., Otis, M., Chaw, G., Cooperstock, J. R. (2011). CMBEC.
Vibration Influences Haptic Perception of Surface Compliance During Walking.
Y. Visell, B. Giordano, G. Millet, J. Cooperstock. PLoS ONE 6(3): e17697. 2011.
Audio-Haptic Identification of Ground Materials during Walking.
B. Giordano, Y. Visell, H.-Y. Yao, V. Hayward, J. Cooperstock, S. McAdams. JASA (in revision).
Interaction Capture in Immersive Virtual Environments via an Intelligent Floor Surface.
Visell, Y., Law, A., Ip, J., Smith, S., Cooperstock, J. R. (2010). IEEE VR.
Contact Sensing and Interaction Techniques for a Distributed, Multimodal Floor Display.
Visell, Y., Smith, S., Law, A., Rajalingham, R., Cooperstock, J. R. (2010). IEEE 3DUI.
Probabilistic Tracking of Pedestrian Movements via In-Floor Force Sensing.
Rajalingham, R., Visell, Y., Cooperstock, J. R. (2010). CRV.
Design of a Vibrotactile Display via a Rigid Surface.
Visell, Y., Cooperstock, J. R. (2010). IEEE Haptics Symposium. Best Paper Award.
Multimodal floor for immersive environments.
Law, A., Ip, J., Peck, B., Visell, Y., Kry, P., Cooperstock, J. R. (2009). ACM SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies.
Touch Is Everywhere: Floor Surfaces as Ambient Haptic Interfaces.
Visell, Y., Law, A., Cooperstock, J. R. IEEE ToH, 2(3):148-159. 2009.