UltraEdit: an in-situ Design Environment for Ultrasound Haptization

The ultrasound display is a promising technology that enables users to feel haptic feedback in virtual environments without the need for wearable devices, which is an opportunity to fully incorporate the sense of touch into a virtual reality setting and greatly improve immersion. However, the technology suffers from a lack of support in enabling users to create personalized haptic feedback for objects without a significant amount of time and technical knowledge. This work presents UltraEdit, an in-situ design environment to directly edit ultrasound haptic sensations in VR through barehand interactions. Users edit haptic sensations as tangible objects called blobs using their fingers to adjust or add touch feedback to 3D objects. Users can utilize a variety of one and two-handed gestures to create, edit, copy, and apply blobs directly to 3D objects, enabling them to effectively utilize a workspace of multiple haptic sensations and provide a single virtual object with many different sensations. This design environment is evaluated by conducting an exploratory user study with a combination of haptic designers, expert VR developers, and novice VR developers, where the usability, efficacy, and learnability of UltraEdit is assessed. Participants find UltraEdit easy to learn and remember, enjoyable to interact with, and effective in haptizing virtual objects.