IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION, VOL. 15, NO. 3, JUNE 1999 1 Book Reviews

Force and Touch Feedback for Virtual Reality--G. Burdea (New York: Wiley, 1996, p. 339.) Reviewed by A. K. Bejczy

The typical and most common interaction with world scenariossimulated
by virtual reality (VR) techniques is purely visual and abstract: we
look at graphic images and change view angles, shading, shadowing,
etc., by keyboard or joystick commands. To whateverextent important
and convenient is the visual and abstract interaction, it severely
restricts our perception and handling of reality in many cases. We
know that the everyday human life and progress in lifeis fundamentally
bound to and depends on our haptic (touch and force) senses. The
question then arises: can our interaction with VR be extended to
include our haptic senses? Could we physically senseweight,
temperature, edges and texture of properly simulated objects and
thereby bringing them to life for us? This book is about this haptic
interaction capability with the VR world.In the Introduction, the
author specifies the terminology and provides a brief historical
background which is anchored to real world needs in teleoperation and
telerobotics. The book then continues withten well-structured
chapters. The first chapter on Haptic Sensing and Control is dedicated
to human kinesthetic sensing and describes the various receptors and
related areas of the human body. Based onhuman factors experiments the
author then summarizes the optimal signal characteristics for touch
and force feedback to be observed by the input-output hardware on the
user body. The next chapter iscalled Actuators and dedicated to the
available technology for force and touch feedback, including
electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic actuators and their hybrid and
miniaturized versions. The next chapter on Nonportable Force Feedback
describes desktop master systems and floor- and ceiling-mounted master
systems, while the subsequent chapter on Portable Force Feedback
describes arm exoskeleton andhand master ("glove") systems. The
following chapter describes Tactile Feedback Interfaces, including
tactile sensors, surface texture and geometry feedback, surface slip
feedback, surface temperaturefeedback, and haptic masters that provide
both tactile and force feedback which better comply with the human
sensorial requirements.

The chapters introduced so far basically dealt with the physics
and physiology or psychophysiology of haptic interfaces and perception.
The subsequent chapters deal with the haptic interfaces from the
viewpoint of VR. The chapter on Physical Modeling outlines the
Manuscript received January 6, 1998; revised April 8, 1998.The
reviewer is with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute
of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 USA.Publisher Item Identifier S
1042-296X(99)03544-2.  algorithmic modeling intricacies of virtual
haptic feedback. This includes the modeling of collision detection,
surface deformation,hard and soft contact simulation which is
equivalent to the modeling of surface mechanical compliance. This
chapter concludes with the discussion of modeling surface smoothness
and of the importanceof integrating physical contraints in the VR
simulation. The next chapter deals with the Control of Haptic
Interfaces which includes the technical description of control methods
and "quality" issues inhaptic feedback (impedance dynamic range,
system bandwidth, time delay and stability). This chapter concludes
with the discussion of distributed computation and programming issues
for haptic feedback. Human Factors topics are discussed in the next
chapter. The purpose of this chapter is to quantify the advantages of
haptic feedback in terms of appropriate criteria like task error
rates, subject learning time,user comfort, and safety. This chapter
also pays attention to sensorial substitution and redundancy in haptic
(specifically in force) feedback. Haptic Feedback Applications is the
topic of the next chapter. Thisincludes fascinating medical
applications like minimally invasive surgery and microsurgery as well
as medical education, entertainment applications, telerobotic
applications, and military applications.The last chapter deals with
The Future. Here the author points out that "major improvements in
feedback actuators, sensors, and computing hardware will lead to
miniaturization, less cumbersomehaptic interface devices, and an
increase in the user's safety and freedom of motion." These
improvements should in turn lead to more natural, realistic, and
useful simulations. The author quotes a fewpromising novel actuators
as example, describes a haptic feedback suit and quotes large-volume
simulations as indicators of the future. This chapter concludes with
the "author's hope that this book willhelp make feedback an integral
and key part of the future VR simulation industry."


The book contains hundreds of tables, figures, and color
illus-trations, and is augmented with a rich list of references (about
350) and a list of companies and research laboratories involved in
related R&D and production work. This book can be consideredas the
first comprehensive source of information on the design, modeling and
applications of force and tactile interfaces for VR. The coverage and
level of details make this book specifically usefulto engineers,
computer scientists, human factors specialists, and application
developers. The book may also be used as a text for a one-semester
university design course in VR. Prof. F. P. Brooks, Jr.points out at
the end of his Foreword to the book that "virtual world techniques,
both for work and for play, will be made more effective and more
delightful by the ability to feel, as well as to see and hear,the
imaginary. To that end this book contributes significantly."

(C) 1999 IEEE

Posted on "sci.virtual-worlds" 

Mike Bevan: INFO: Force feedback products and researchesThu, 13 Jul 1995 10:57
Prof. Burdea writes:

>You may want to consult the July issue of UK-based "VR News" which
>includes a review article on commercially-available force feedback
>products.

I am grateful to Prof. Burdea for this. His invaluable book 'Virtual
Reality Technology' (Grigore Burdea and Philippe Coiffet: John Wiley & Sons
Inc., ISBN 0-471-08632-0), which includes expert coverage of the physiology
and technology of force and tactile feedback, was reviewed in our June
issue by Prof. Robert Stone, head of the UK's National Centre for Virtual
Environments. For the benefit of those who have not seen it, Prof. Stone's
review is set out below.

Mike Bevan
Editor - VR NEWS

BOOK REVIEW - May 1995 by Bob Stone, Professor at Salford University, UK.
VR News Volume 4, Issue 5, June 1995, page 29.
				
				Book Review
			VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGY
	            Grigore Burdea and Philippe Coiffet	
			John Wiley& Sons Inc; 1994
			  ISBN 0-471-08632-0


When earlier this summer during VR World '95 in Strutgart, I was approached by
Greg Burdea with a request to review "his new book", I agreed, expecting to be
sent a text which was highly biased towards tactile and force feedback systems-
this well known and respected specialization of Rutgers University in New 
Jersey. What I did not expect to receive was a general book on VR technologies
of such high quality.

Co-authored by Philippe Coiffet, Research Director of CNRS in France, the book
succeeds, to my mind, in pitting across the technical achievements and challenges 
of VR in a clear, concise and unbiased way. A particular plus point for the
book is that the authors have departed from the traditional VR history-displays-input 
devices-applications formula, and have presented the subject matter in a
very integrated and coherent manner. Also, this is the first text I have read
which provides adequate coverage of computing in VR, not just for immersive
systems, but also for desktop applications. Three chapters are dedicated to
computing architectures, modelling, and programming in VR provide the reader
with an excellent understanding of the issues surrounding PC based toolkits,
parallel and distributed VR systems, VR world optimization and interaction.

As one would expect, the chapter covering tactile and force feedback is excellent, 
reinforced later in the book with further coverage of the computational
requirements surrounding object dynamics, tactile texture, weight and surface
deformation/compliance. In fact, throughout the book, it was particularly
satisfying to see that Burdea and Coiffet had not followed the annoying recent
trend of padding out chapters with obvious extracts from other books on "how
the eye works" or "how the ear works". Rather, they have carefully and concisely 
summarized the main psychological and physiological issues in a way which 
complements later discussions of individual VR technologies.

One chapter I was very pleased to see and even more pleased to read is entitled
Human Factors in VR. In particular, one subsection covering VR Evaluation
Methodologies, is an excellent attempt to put forward the problems of 
quantitative and qualitative assessment of VR technologies and applications,
drawing valid parallels with human factors endeavours in related fields such
as telerobotics. This is a problem area which a few VR authors have 
acknowledged, but most have declined to pursue in any great detail.

I only have two criticisms of the book's contents. The first is that in places,
Burdea and Coiffet suddenly jump into a mode of presenting quite complex
technical and mathematical information, better suited for a lower-level-text-book, 
and somewhat out of keeping with the style of the remainder of the book.
I also felt that the applications sections were rather biased towards US
developments, with only a mention or two of European developments.

Nevertheless, overall this is an excellent book, suitable for VR newcomers
and veterans alike, and one which now certainly sits on top of my recommended
reading list, both for students and industrialists.

BOOK REVIEW
IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine
Vol. 14, Number 2, March/April 1995

	        Virtual Reality Technology
         	G. Burdea and  P. Coiffet
                John Wiley & Sons, 1994, xvi+400 pages,
		ISBN 0-471-08632-0. $54.95

This book is devoted to virtual reality technology, from
hardware for 3-d trackers, sensory gloves, displays and 3-D
sound generators, to software development. Its contents also covers
applications as related to medical care, personal training, entertainment, 
bussness, and manufacturing.  The most interesting approach taken by the 
authors was to devote one of the chapters to force and tactile concepts, 
which have not been widely reported elsewhere.

The text is a very well organized.  It can be used for senior and
graduate engineering students, as well as by researchers in the areas of 
medicine, the military, robotics, and by those involved in entertainment, 
the arts, and education.  The examples are very carefully chosen.
I strongly  recommend this book to anyone, from the undergraduate
student to the surgeon.
 
The first chapter defines and summarizes virtual reality technology. Virtual 
reality tools include 3-D position sensors, 3-D  magnetic probes, sensing 
gloves, stereo viewing devices, and 3-D sound generators which are all very 
well introduced in Chapter 2.  Chapter 3 discusses new and exciting research 
areas in virtual reality technology, including the concept of ``Touch and 
Force Feedback''.

Virtual reality computer architectures designed to fulfill the
requirement of high speed I/O and real-time simulations are
covered in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 introduces geometric, kinematic, physical 
and behavior modeling to characterize the virtual reality environment.  
Chapter 6 covers virtual reality programming techniques such as world 
editing, event scheduling and graphical programming.  Chapter 7 discusses 
ergonomics, physiological and psychological aspects of virtual reality.
It also covers the impact of virtual reality on our private and public
life. 

The applications of virtual reality to medicine, arts, entertainment,
bussness, and the military are presented in Chapter 8.  As a biomedical
engineer, I really enjoyed reading this chapter, especially the
sections related to the applications of virtual reality to surgery and 
rehabilitation.  Finally, in chapter 9, the authors describe some recent 
advances in virtual reality technology, including large volume tracking, 
new displays, new displays, neural interfaces, image gloves, voice
control, and portable computers.

Metin Akay,
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Rutgers University.

Posting to sci.virtual-worlds
April 19, 1995
(The following article has been excerpted from the upcoming, May 1995
issue of "Virtual Reality Monthly," an industry newsletter of VR.

                                         The Essential VR Library

Toni Emerson's Top Ten
     VR enthusiasts looking to jumpstart a collection of essential VR
books need go no further than Toni Emerson.  The widely acknowledged
first and last word when it comes to the skinny on the best in VR
literature, Emerson has been tracking writings on the technology full
time for the past four years as chief "cybrarian" at the University of
Washington's Human Interface Technology Lab in Seattle.
.......
     Given the wide variety of literature available, it was tough
for Emersonto keep her list to only ten.  But after some
cajoling, she finally came across with her picks.  Here they are:
.....

(4) *"Virtual Reality Technology," Grigore Burdea and Philippe
Coiffet  (New York, NY:  John Wiley & Sons, 1994) "An
excellent book as far as walking you through," Emerson says.
"But it's not the basic, easy read.  This is a good textbook
for VR with a decent bibliography in the back.  I say decent,
because I have written my  own and am, of course,
prejudiced."

Posting to sci.virtual-worlds
April 17, 1995.

Robert Lindeman: >PUB: Virtual Reality Technology        17 Apr 1995 18:34
Bill Thompson (wgthom@gandalf.rutgers.edu) wrote:
: Here is the review appeared in the IEEE EMB Magazine March 1995 issue

:               Virtual Reality Technology
:                G. Burdea and  P. Coiffet.
[...]

I read this text, and found it to be a good introduction to the many
different aspects of VR. It covers many of the "important" papers in
the field, and hence provides a good bibliography.

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 (gogo@seas.gwu.edu a.k.a. Robert W. Lindeman)