Microsoft Research presented on Monday an original controller designed to convey the feeling of grabbing objects in virtual reality. This device called X-Rings with lever shape it is able to offer haptic response adapting in 360º to the 3D shape of everything that we take with our hands in a VR environment.
Its name refers to that it has been designed as a modular cylinder of expandable rings from 5.7 to 7.7 centimeters in diameter, which widen or shrink driven by various engines. X-Rings it is held with the palm of the hand. Its capacitive sensors detect the grip points of the user’s fingers, as well as the force with which we squeeze the virtual object we are catching. If we deform it, using a haptic response in almost real time (100 milliseconds) the controller adapts to mimic that feeling.
At the moment it is a prototype with which a study has been made after having been tested by several users, and there are no immediate plans for its commercialization. Among those responsible for this project on human/machine interaction, Mar González Franco, graduated in Computer Science from the Ramon Llul University (Barcelona), who has been working as a researcher at Microsoft Research for almost 6 years.
