When it comes to immersion, you may lose the sensation when presented with something that requires the use of a controller to operate it when you’d normally just use your hands to accomplish the task. Everyday experiences in virtual reality (VR) such as opening or closing doors, or feeling absolutely no resistance of an object might distort or break the illusion of reality in a virtual world. VRFocus spoke to Gijs den Butter, the co-founder of Senseglove, about incorporating haptic feedback as well as force feedback to create a more realistic experience.
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Feel the sensation of crushing an egg in VR.
Spawning from a graduation project around a glove for rehabilitation, den Butter and his co-founder realised they could use concepts of the glove in virtual reality (VR) applications. Den Butter says he tried VR and was quite sad when he had to push a button to pick up an object. They decided to take what they had of their glove and turned the motor functions around in order to enhance motion, so users could feel objects in a virtual space.
Originating from a graduation project that den Butter was working on with glove rehabilitation, then tried VR. button to pick up an object, we had the glove similar but turn around the motor controls to enhance motion so you can actually feel now. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year in Las Vegas, individuals were able to try and squeeze various round objects in their hands, such as eggs or a squishy ball. They were asked to squeeze their hand, feeling first the tension then the release as the ‘egg’ broke. This received a lot of positive feedback and when asked if people were impressed den Butter says, “to be honest, yes.”
At the moment Senseglove has 500 units available for pre-order on their website. All of the functions and capabilities of the glove on the show floor will also be available in their DK1 version, which should be ready to ship around July 2018. These include being able to push buttons, pull a trigger or, for example, use a welder. Den Butter says that the next steps would be to make the glove smaller, in different sizes with hard parts that will always be 90 degrees above the fingers.
To find out more watch the video below: