JP2003067107A - Tactile sense presenting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To apply a sense when an object is touched in a virtual space, without any equipment on an operator. SOLUTION: An operator operates a virtual hand 1b in a virtual space display means 1 via a hand information input means 2. When the virtual object 1a is touched, a blast control means 4 outputs a function group from the touching state on each object and controls a blast means 3 to blow air having characteristics of each object over the operator.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a force sense presentation device for presenting a force sense provided to a virtual object displayed in a virtual space to a virtual body displayed by the operator in the virtual space. Is.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a conventional device for giving a sense of force to an operator in a virtual environment, a ring with a thread attached to the operator's finger is attached, and the other end of the thread is attached to a motor to control the tension of the thread. There is a "thread-type" force sense presentation device that presents force sense.
Further, there is also "a virtual space system that can be realized" described in the application number "Japanese Patent Application No. 11-190638". This represents a virtual object in the virtual space, and attaches the air blowing and receiving means to the operator's body or belongings. The blast receiving means includes a blast receiving unit and a pressure presenting unit.
By using the blower receiving unit detecting means for detecting the position and orientation of the blower receiving means, the virtual blower receiving object is displayed in the virtual space, and when the virtual contact between the virtual blower receiving object and the virtual object occurs, Depending on the state of virtual contact, there is one in which a blower receiving unit receives wind and a pressure presenting unit presents the received wind pressure to the operator as pressure.

[0003]

However, since the former "thread type" device uses a thread to detect the position information of the operator, there is a problem that the operator cannot move freely. Has become. Also, in the latter "actual virtual space system", since the operator feels pressure, it is troublesome for the operator to attach the air blowing and receiving means to the body or belongings.

The present invention has been made to solve such a problem. An operator touches an object when he / she touches the object in the virtual space without directly wearing the device or touching the device. The present invention provides a device that presents such a feeling to the operator according to the property of each object.

[0005]

[Means for Solving the Problems]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention. The virtual space display means 1 displays a virtual object, the position of the operator's hand is input by the hand information input means 2, is reflected in the virtual object data inside the computer, and is displayed in the virtual space as a virtual hand. When the virtual hand 1b and the virtual object 1a are not in contact with each other in this virtual space, the air blowing control unit 4 does not operate the air blowing unit 3. However, when in contact, the air blow control means 4 performs control corresponding to each object, and the air blow means 3 presents the operator with a different tactile sensation for each object.

Hereinafter, each constituent element of the first embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail. FIG. 2 illustrates the configuration of the virtual space display means 1. The virtual object 1a and the virtual hand 1b are displayed / arranged on the display. This is realized by the function of projecting a three-dimensional shape on a two-dimensional display. The operator's hand updates the virtual hand position data according to the movement of the operator's hand based on the position information input from the hand information input means 2. By this position update, the display on the screen of the virtual hand is also updated.

FIG. 3 shows a distance sensor 2a in the hand information input means 2.
The configuration of the method using is described. The distance to the hand is measured by the distance sensor 2a. For example, when an ultrasonic sensor is used, the distance between the sensor and the hand is calculated by calculating the time at which the receiving unit of the sensor receives the ultrasonic wave that is hit by the hand and rebounded from the transmitting unit of the sensor. Although this measurement value information is digital data, in this embodiment, first, the DA conversion circuit 2b is configured to obtain the analog value of this measurement value, and then this analog value is used for the computer, the AD conversion board 2c. To use. In this way, the position information of the hand is captured as a numerical value in the computer. It should be noted that this computer has object data for representing the virtual object 1a and virtual hand data, and the virtual contact recognition means 4a determines contact / non-contact. Then, the blower control means 4 gives a blower command 4b to the blower means 3 according to the inputted numerical value to blow the blower.

Next, the operation of the first embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail. FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the positional information from the hand information input means 2 and its control flow. First, the hand information input means 2 recognizes the position of the hand (S
1). Next, the virtual object 1 is displayed on the virtual space display means 1.
a is displayed (S2). Also, since the virtual hand 1b exists in this virtual space, the operator moves it in the virtual space using the hand information input means 2 (S3). And whether this hand is in contact with any virtual object 1a,
It is determined whether there is any (S4). If they are in contact, the blower control means 4 is activated by the contacting object (S
3), the air is blown by the air blowing means 3 (S6).

FIG. 5 illustrates the second embodiment and illustrates the configuration of a method using a camera as the hand information input means. By the input method described later, the position information of the hand is input from the camera to the computer, the contact / non-contact is determined based on the object data and the hand data as in the case of the distance sensor, and the air blowing control unit 4 sends the air blowing unit 3. A blow command 4b is given to the fan to blow the air. At the same time, the body of the blowing means is movable by a motor to follow the position of the operator's hand.

Another input method of the hand information input means is to use a camera and input three-dimensional information of the hand by image processing. In this case, since three-dimensional information of the hand is obtained, it is possible to freely move the hand in the virtual space and contact the virtual object as compared with the case where only the distance data is obtained by the ultrasonic sensor. Various methods are conceivable for inputting the three-dimensional information of the hand using the camera. For example, using one camera, the distance is simply calculated from the size of the hand input to the camera, and the hand position is simply input using the two-dimensional positional relationship on the screen of the hand. be able to. That is, as shown in FIG. 6, the sizes of the hands are different between the hand images Image1 and Image2 obtained from the camera. This allows the distance of the hand to be easily estimated. As for the center of gravity of the hand, the center of gravity of the image of the hand may be taken. Of course, the position of the hand may be input by more complicated image processing, or the position of the hand may be input using a stereo image from two cameras.

Next, the operation of the second embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail. FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the positional information from the hand information input means 2 using a camera and the flow of its control. First, the hand information input means 2 recognizes the position of the hand (s1). Next, the virtual object 1a is displayed on the virtual space display means 1 (s2). Further, since the virtual hand 1b exists in this virtual space, the operator moves the virtual hand 1b using the hand information input means (s
3). And this hand is any virtual object 1a
It is determined whether or not it is in contact with (s4). If they are in contact, the movable blower means 3 is made to follow the hand by the motor based on the hand position information that has already been input (s5). Further, as in the first embodiment, the blower control means 4 is activated by the contacting object (s
6), the air is blown toward the operator's hand by the air blower 3 (s7).

Next, the components of the third and fourth embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail. Since the configuration is the same as that described in the first embodiment, the description will be omitted. In this embodiment, attribute information such as a hard object and a soft object and their respective geometric data are described in the object data of FIG. Here, when the virtual hand 1b which can be moved by the hand information input means 2 touches each virtual object 1a, it is recognized that the virtual contact recognition means 4a makes contact as described in the first embodiment of the present invention. Then, the blowing control means 4 drives the blowing means 3 for each property.

FIG. 8 is a view showing a method of instructing the air blowing means 3 of the air blowing control means 4 to blow air. When an object is touched on the virtual space display means 1, the force sense presentation function group 4c is input from the air blowing control means 4 to the air blowing means 3 as the air blowing instruction 4b for each attribute determined by the hand data and the object data in the computer. Then, the air blowing means 3 presents the operator with a wind according to the function.

When the attribute information of an object is input to the blowing control means 4, a blowing instruction is given and a wind is sent to present the operator with a force sense as when the object was touched.

The third embodiment is a function that represents the change of the air blowing command value depending on the distance when the position of the virtual hand and the virtual object are in contact. In the case of a hard object, a certain position (the virtual hand 1
When the position b comes into contact with the virtual object 1a), the air blow control unit 4 is driven as described above, but the geometric value of the next hard object causes the output value to rapidly increase at that position as shown in FIG. 9A. Up This indicates that you have touched a hard object. With this value, the wind is provided by the air blower 3,
It is possible to give the operator a sense of hardness. On the contrary, in the case of a soft object, it is the same as a hard object up to a certain position as shown in FIG. 9B, but the output value is gradually changed from the contact position. This represents a soft object.

Next, in the case of a heavy object, the weight should not actually change, but in order to show that the operator touches the object and the moving distance gradually increases, it is heavy for the operator. As you approach, the air volume gradually increases. On the contrary, in the case of a light object, a small amount of wind is blown as shown in FIG. For example, when a person has a balloon, he / she actually feels like he / she is touching an object, so it can be expressed as a light object by such a function.

Next, in the fourth embodiment, it is a function that represents the temporal change of the air blowing command value after the contact between the position of the virtual hand and the virtual object. In the case of a rough object, FIG.
This is a method of presenting the texture of the object to the operator by using a temporal change after being touched, rather than a difference due to a distance (a subtle positional relationship while in contact) as shown in (a). On the other hand, FIG. 11 (b) expresses that the wind feels as a smooth object to humans by sending out a small amount of air flow even after the passage of time.

As described above, the control function is shown in each of FIGS. 9, 10 and 11, but this is only an example, and it can be used for hard / soft, heavy / light, rough / smooth objects, etc. The touching feeling changes depending on the target object. Therefore, it is possible to use the various functions other than those shown in FIGS.

Next, the operation of the third and fourth embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail. FIG. 12 is a flow chart centering on the method for controlling air flow. First, similar to the first embodiment, the virtual space display means 1 displays the virtual object 1a and the virtual hand 1b moved from the hand information input means 2 (ST1). When the virtual hand 1b contacts the virtual object 1a in the virtual space, contact / non-contact is determined from the hand data and the object data (ST2). If they are in contact with each other, the position of each object is recognized by the hand information input means 2, and a function representing each property for each position is sent to the blower means 3 by the blower command 4b (ST3).
The blowing means 3 moves a fan according to each function to send a wind so that the operator feels the property of each object (ST).
4).

[0020]

According to the present invention, by using the hand information inputting means, the information can be input while freely moving the hand in a completely non-contact state, which is unprecedented before, or the operation can be performed when the object is touched. It enables a means to return the feeling of the object to the person. Further, by controlling the wind using the sensory function corresponding to the attribute information of the object, it becomes possible to present the property of the object to the operator.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 2 and 3 are explanatory diagrams of each component of the first embodiment, and FIG. 4 is an operation of the first embodiment. FIG. 5, FIG. 6 and FIG. 6 are explanatory views for each component of the second embodiment, FIG. 7 is a flow chart for the operation of the second embodiment, and FIG. 8 is the third and fourth. 9 is a graph showing a control function given to the blowing means, and FIG. 12 is a flow chart of the operation of the third and fourth embodiments.
In the figure, 1 is a virtual space display means, 2 is a hand information input means, 3
Is a blowing means, and 4 is a blowing control means. Further, on the virtual space display means 1, 1a indicates a virtual object and 1b indicates a virtual hand. When a distance sensor is used as the hand information input means 2, 2a is a distance sensor, 2b is a DA conversion circuit,
2c is composed of three AD conversion boards. The blower control unit 4 is composed of a virtual contact recognition unit 4a, a blower command 4b, and a control command unit 4c such as a force sense presentation function group.

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A virtual space display means for displaying a virtual object and a virtual hand, a hand information input means for recognizing the position of the operator's hand, a blowing means for sending wind in the direction of the operator's hand, and a virtual hand. A tactile sense presentation device configured by a blower control unit that sends a command to the blower unit according to a position and a state of a virtual object. 2. The tactile sense presentation device according to claim 1, wherein the hand information input means recognizes position information of an operator's hand by a distance sensor. 3. The hand information input means according to claim 1, having a function of recognizing position information of an operator's hand by a camera, and the blower means having a motor attached to change a blower direction. A tactile presentation device characterized in that the blower control means drives the motor so as to blow air in the direction of the operator's hand using the position information of the hand. 4. The air blow control means according to claim 1, wherein the air blow control means has a predetermined force sense function expressing the relationship between the distance between the virtual hand position and the virtual object and the air blow command value. A tactile presentation device characterized by changing the blow command value. 5. The air blow control means according to claim 1, having a predetermined force sense presentation function for changing the air blow command value with time, and according to the function in a state where a virtual hand and a virtual object are in contact with each other. A tactile presentation device characterized by generating a blow command value.