Utilisation d’une manette de jeu vidéo pour des expériences de mécanique

Dans cet article sont données les informations pratiques nécessaires à la mise en oeuvre, simple, originale et peu coûteuse, d\u27un contrôleur de jeu vidéo pour mesurer des accélérations. Quelques idées d\u27expériences utilisant ce dispositif sont ensuite indiquées. L\u27intérêt pédagogique d\u27une telle démarche dans le cadre d\u27un enseignement sur la notion de capteur est enfin discuté

Human-Scale Virtual Environment for Product Design: Effect of Sensory Substitution

This paper presents a human-scale virtual environment (VE) with haptic feedback along with two experiments performed in the context of product design. The user interacts with a virtual mock-up using a large-scale bimanual string-based haptic interface called SPIDAR (Space Interface Device for Artificial Reality). An original self-calibration methodis proposed. A vibro-tactile glove was developed and integrated to the SPIDAR to provide tactile cues to the operator. The purpose of the first experiment was: (1) to examine the effect of tactile feedback in a task involving reach-and-touch of different parts of a digital mock-up, and (2) to investigate the use of sensory substitution in such tasks. The second experiment aimed to investigate the effect of visual and auditory feedback in a car-light maintenance task. Results of the first experiment indicate that the users could easily and quickly access and finely touch the different parts of the digital mock-up when sensory feedback (either visual, auditory, or tactile) was present. Results of the of the second experiment show that visual and auditory feedbacks improve average placement accuracy by about 54 % and 60% respectively compared to the open loop case.

Modeling Dynamic Interaction in Virtual Environments and the Evaluation of Dynamic Virtual Fixtures

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology covering a large field of applications among which are sports and video games. In both gaming and sporting VR applications, interaction techniques involve specific gestures such as catching or striking. However, such dynamic gestures are not currently being recognized as elementary task primitives, and have therefore not been investigated as such. In this paper, we propose a framework for the analysis of interaction in dynamic virtual environments (DVEs). This framework is based on three dynamic interaction primitives (DIPs) that are common to many sporting activities: catching, throwing, and striking. For each of these primitives, an original modeling approach is proposed. Furthermore, we introduce and formalize the concept of dynamic virtual fixtures (DVFs). These fixtures aim to assist the user in tasks involving interaction with moving objects or with objects to be set in movement. Two experiments have been carried out to investigate the influence of different DVFs on human performance in the context of ball catching and archery. The results reveal a significant positive effect of the DVFs, and that DVFs could be either classified as “performance-assisted” or “learning-assisted.