Measurement and analysis of the object length perceptive characteristics with visual and tactile information for proposal of three-dimension tactile shape display

Up to now, there is no good hardware of three-dimension (3 D) tactile shape display for virtual reality, because a different object has various shape, therefore, to present the all different 3 D object shape with continuous values is difficult to operator. In the psychophysical studies, human visual and tactile sensations have illusory fusion caracteristics. That is to say, we can recognize an object shape tactually using the vision characteristic even if exact tactile information is not presented. So by utilizing human characteristics of sensory illusory fusion, realization of the tactile shape display can be simplified. Object shape is made from the surface curvature and the distance between any finger touch points. In our previous study, human fusion characteristics of the curvature of the curved surface are measured by psychological experiment. In this study, tactile perceptive characteristics of the distance between the thumb and each fingertip on an object are measured and analyzed. Based on the results, we proposed a three-dimension tactile shape display.