Reporting by XinZhiyuan
Editor: Yuan Xie is sleepy
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a hardware module mounted on the Meta Quest 2 headset that allows users to experience the touch of drinking, brushing, and kissing in VR.
At the beginning of the meta-universe boom, there were people who loved more real people poured cold water: "Saying that such a half-day virtual immersive experience, can you reproduce kissing and hugging in the VR world?" 」
It really can!
Just recently, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have reproduced "kisses" in the metaverse.
Reproduce the touch of the lips and tongues in the metaverse
With the exception of the occasional vibrating handheld controller, most consumers can use ordinary VR devices that ignore sensations such as taste, smell, and touch, and instead focus on sight and sound.
That's enough to make the VR experience more engaging than it was a few decades ago, but it's not enough to really trick the user's brain into thinking that what his eyes see is comparable to a real-life experience.
Over the years, researchers have worked to develop and improve old and new VR devices so that other feels and visual effects in virtual reality are just as real.
Most notably, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Institute for Human-Computer Interaction (also known as the Future Interface Group, FIG) have developed techniques that allow users to feel the touch of lips, teeth, and tongues in virtual reality.
Thesis link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13q0pvCHCV7q_eQSugoFpnFolRrk-qDks/view
Vr users' tactile reproduction may not be enough to pet cats and dogs in virtual reality, and use their hands to feel the realistic hairs on virtual cats and dogs.
But the touch of drinking water from a virtual water dispenser can now really be reproduced.
Of course, you can also feel the breeze blowing from your lips while riding.
And the feeling of the broken pieces hitting between the lips and teeth when hitting the box...
this...... It hurts to listen...
Metaverse kissing to understand
Of course, such a useful new technology, it is not a waste to use it to brush your teeth and drink water in VR.
Whoever it is, the first thing that comes to mind is to use this technology to reproduce the sweet touch of kissing in VR. Researchers are no exception.
The working principle of the device is to use the thin and light ultrasonic transducer in the new module to aim the ultrasonic pulse at the position inside and around the user's mouth, and to make them levitate and move by bombarding the tiny particles with high-energy ultrasonic pulses.
In this way, they create a touch sensation on the user's lips, teeth, and even tongue when they open their mouths.
In this way, not only can the simple touch be reproduced between the lips and teeth. Through programming changes in the hardware control code, ultrasonic pulses can be programmed into various specific modes.
This allows you to reproduce the continuous vibration of a virtual stream of water splashing in your mouth as an object glides over, brushes your lips, or leans over to drink water from a virtual water dispenser.
Naturally, it also includes various tactile experiences of lip and tongue interaction between couples when kissing.
Many people see the business opportunity: if FIG's technology is commercially implemented, the world's first meta-universe hardware device that can remotely virtually reproduce kissing will be born.
If you are equipped with other hardware and technology, cough, only can not think of it can not be done, full of potential, unlimited business opportunities, a blue ocean ah............
Thinking of this, not only the middle-aged editors who are rubbing their hands and smiling, netizens have also associated.
"Coming out of the street with xxx version soon."
However, the most touching thing is the netizen's heavenly question:
"This technology is remarkable, but for us who have been single for many years and have not kissed a real person in ten or eight years, can anyone describe the kissing touch in real life in words that we can understand?" 」
The user said it even more sadly: "I guess the kissing sensation of the VR headset reproducing will be an unbearable sense of loneliness." 」
However, if you wear it while playing a horror game, the experience may be too "gram".
This device allows you to experience the sight and touch of a large spider swooping in the face and mucus flowing from the face into the mouth at the same time.
The girl in charge of the experiment was walking, and then a "face-hugging worm" pounced on it without warning, frantically "interacting" with your lips...
Another big brother who participated in the test said that the effect was so real that he pumped his face in reality and wanted to fan the spider off...
The effect is out of the group
Previous studies have typically used real physical contact when "replicating" VR scenes.
For example, poking a robotic arm directly into your mouth, or using a heating wire to generate heat and a fan to simulate airflow.
Obviously, these methods can achieve not much functionality, and the latency is high.
Maybe you've all walked out a few steps, and the robotic arm hasn't finished a circle yet.
CMU researchers took a different approach.
At the bottom of the VR headset, they installed a custom PCB with 64 40kHz ultrasonic sensors on top of it that can face the user's mouth at a 45° angle.
The entire array measures 17.9x10.6x1.5cm and weighs up to 107g. Overall, it's still relatively thin and light, but it's still 15.8 percent more massive and 15 millimeters thicker than the Oculus Quest 2's 676 grams, increasing the overall height of the device by about 16.5 percent.
Next, the researchers connected the array to the Ultraino driver board via a ribbon cable and upgraded it with an IX4427N integrated circuit chip. It was followed by the Arduino Mega and flashed with the Ultraino DriverMEGA firmware.
This allows all 64 sensors to be controlled independently with a time step resolution of 2.5us, equivalent to a /5 phase resolution at 40kHz, and an analog node position accuracy of 0.9mm.
In terms of software, the researchers chose to develop in Unity.
Using the known positions of virtual objects and headphones, including the geometry of the ultrasonic array, it is possible to create a haptic effect in the necessary three-dimensional positions. After that, the calculated "emission scheme" will be transmitted to the Arduino at a speed of 10Hz.
While this data is transmitted via USB, it's still "faster" than the visuals rendered on Oculus Quest 2 on average (which is close enough in time to be considered synchronous).
However, the programme is not perfect at this stage.
Researchers can currently only generate a sense of touch for the object closest to the lips, and cannot achieve multi-node touch.
Fortunately, users usually only put an object to their mouth (e.g. pick up a cup and drink water).
The haptic parameters used in the scene
The effect, in short, is – it's hugely popular!
Perhaps this result is not so surprising, after all, the sense of touch enhances the sense of realism and immersion.
In particular, haptics can provide VR event information outside the user's field of vision, which greatly enhances the user's experience.
Of course, the researchers didn't stop there.
An upgraded version of the next generation is already under development.
Resources:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/invent-vr-device-kissing-simulation-haptics
https://gizmodo.com/vr-researches-simulate-kisses-with-ultrasonic-transduce-1848849489
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q6dZQfV1x8
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13q0pvCHCV7q_eQSugoFpnFolRrk-qDks/view
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