Multi Remote Tower Operations (MRTO), where one ATCO has the responsibility of two airports simultaneously, have become an important means to reduce the cost for air traffic control at small regional airports in Sweden without sacrificing safety or service levels. A challenge in MRTO is to keep normal movements operational on an airport while there is busy traffic on the second airport handled by the same ATCO. Earlier work has described the potential of using a digital tower assistant (DiTA), an automation that handles the communication and monitoring of e.g. a single, simple approach and landing on an airport with an otherwise empty sky, while the ATCO needs to focus their attention on the other airport. In this paper we let two interaction designers analyse the interview material from a recent study with five experienced ATCOs, each performing two scenarios using DiTA, and present the conclusions made from an interaction design perspective.

As Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming a readily available tool in an increasing number of fields, we see also an increasing number of non-technical users entering virtual environments (VEs). One pose manipulation technique that has the potential to be both fast and intuitive to use, is the Hand-centered Object Manipulation Extending Ray-casting (HOMER), presented first by Bowman and Hodges [1]. In this paper we take a look at how a naive implementation of HO-MER can lead to unintuitive interaction and present mathematics for avoiding this problem, by using a rotational offset of the grab vector instead of a static offset vector. Subsequently we compare the naive and rotation-based versions with respect to task completion time and number of re-grabs, and measure their respective System Usability Scale (SUS) score and Raw NASA Task Load Index (RTLX)

In this article, we present a digital platform for unmanned traffic management, UTM City, for research on visualization, simulation, and management of autonomous urban vehicle traffic. Such vehicles orient themselves automatically and provide services ranging from transport to remote presence and surveillance, and new regulations and standards for authorization and monitoring are currently being developed to accommodate for such services. Our system has been developed in close collaboration with domain experts that have contributed with scenarios and participated in numerous workshops to explore the use of visualization in airborne drone traffic monitoring, management, and development of the air space. We share here our experiences with this system and explore the need for visualization in future scenarios to ensure safe, free, and efficient air spaces.

Recent research shows that infrared cameras can help students visualize and interpret notoriously challenging thermal concepts. This chapter describes the application of thermal visualization in a public setting. Specifically, we present the design and implementation of an augmented reality system for the real-time projection of thermal imagery onto objects. Examples of hands-on activities for visualizing thermal processes with the system include conduction and insulation, rubber band thermodynamics, friction, impact heating, enthalpy of chemical reactions, radiation wavelength, mixing liquids, and heat of evaporation. We discuss how the interactive activities might provide pedagogical opportunities for accessing and engaging with thermal phenomena in a science center context. Practical considerations of the system for public exhibition spaces are also given attention.

The extended reality market has rapidly grown with a wide range of products for not only Virtual Reality applications, but also for advanced and multiple forms of Augmented Reality. In this paper we review the currently available complete solutions for Augmented Reality, divided into the primary display techniques used: Video See-through, using cameras to capture the real world subsequently presented with virtual overlays on a handheld or headworn display, Optical See-through, using semi-transparent display to allow real world view together with the virtual augmentations, and Projection-based AR or Spatial AR, the use of projectors to display augmentations directly on top of surfaces in the room.  First potential products were found using popular Internet search engines, after which products that are not complete solutions or not commercially available were filtered out. We present the different products together with a description of their presented or studied characteristics, and of their accompanying software solutions.

The roles of human operators are changing due to increased intelligence and autonomy of computer systems. Humans will interact with systems at a more overarching level or only in specific situations. This involves learning new practices and changing habitual ways of thinking and acting, including reconsidering human autonomy in relation to autonomous systems. This paper describes a design case of a future autonomous management system for drone traffic in cities in a key scenario we call The Computer in Brussels. Our approach to designing for human collaboration with autonomous systems builds on scenario-based design and cognitive work analysis facilitated by computer simulations. We use a temporal method, called the Joint Control Framework to describe human and automated work in an abstraction hierarchy labeled Levels of Autonomy in Cognitive Control. We use the Score notation to analyze patterns of temporal developments that span levels of the abstraction hierarchy and discuss implications for human-automation communication in traffic management. We discuss how autonomy at a lower level can prevent autonomy on higher levels, and vice versa. We also discuss the temporal nature of autonomy in minute-to-minute operative work. Our conclusion is that human autonomy in relation to autonomous systems is based on fundamental trade-offs between technological opportunities to automate and values of what human actors find meaningful.

Public understanding of contemporary scientific issues is critical for the future of society. Public spaces, such as science centers, can impact the communication of science by providing active knowledge-building experiences of scientific phenomena. In contributing to this vision, we have previously developed an interactive visualization as part of a public exhibition about nano. We reflect on how the immersive design and features of the exhibit contribute as a tool for science communication in light of the emerging paradigm of exploranation, and offer some forward-looking perspectives about what this notion has to offer the domain.

Public understanding of contemporary scientific issues is critical for the future of society. Public spaces, such as science centers, can impact the communication of science by providing active knowledge-building experiences of scientific phenomena. In contributing to this vision, we have previously developed an interactive visualization as part of a public exhibition about nano. We reflect on how the immersive design and features of the exhibit contribute as a tool for science communication in light of the emerging paradigm of exploranation, and offer some forward-looking perspectives about what this notion has to offer the domain.

Advanced automation has been highlighted as contributory to several accidents involving modern bridge support systems and automation aiding maritime pilots for maneuvering and navigation. This paper argues for reskilling for automation collaboration, that operators need training that provides an understanding of what data the automation uses and how, and to transfer this skill to their working environment and be able to make full use of the automation even under influence of inaccurate data. As a case, this paper explores the predictor automation, which is an advanced navigation aid that visualizes an estimation of the ships future trajectory on an electronic chart display. Field studies and a literature review of maritime accidents were carried out to determine difficulties maritime pilots have with understanding the predictor. This research provides valuable guidance for how automation transparency can be an important part of reskilling and how to achieve it. Copyright (C) 2019. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Geographic visualizations are, due to the limited need for vertical navigation,  suitable for touch tables. In this poster we consider the design of interaction design for selection and manipulation through touch on the screen used for the display of 3D geographic visualization---in our case the visualization of and interaction with drone traffic over rural and urban areas---focusing on moving from a monoscopic to a more immersive, stereoscopic touch table, and how this move affects the interaction design. With a monoscopic display our stereoscopic vision uses the graphics to perceive the location of the surface, and touch interaction can naturally and intuitively be performed on top of 3D objects. Moving to stereocopic display, for increased sense of immersion, the graphics no longer provide visual cues about the location of the screen. We argue that this motivates modification of the design principles, with an alternative interaction design as a result.

Current hand-held smart devices are supplied with powerful processors, high resolution screens, and sharp cameras that make them suitable for Augmented Reality (AR) applications. Such applications commonly use interaction techniques adapted for touch, such as touch selection and multi-touch pose manipulation, mapping 2D gestures to 3D action. To enable direct 3D interaction for hand-held AR, an alternative is to use the changes of the device pose for 6 degrees-of-freedom interaction. In this article we explore selection and pose manipulation techniques that aim to minimize the amount of touch. For this, we explore and study the characteristics of both non-touch selection and non-touch pose manipulation techniques. We present two studies that, on the one hand, compare selection techniques with the common touch selection and, on the other, investigate the effect of user gaze control on the non-touch pose manipulation techniques.

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Drone-based services in cities will most likely result in high traffic densities (especially during peak hours). Basic unmanned/urban (air) traffic management (UTM) tools and interventions to cope with traffic issues are now well-known (e.g. geofences, layers). There can however be interdependencies between issues and solutions when combined. This paper presents sampled side-effects of using basic unmanned traffic management interventions in an airspace with autonomous point-to-point drone traffic. The samples are based on an interactive simulation and consists of statistics and synthetic images of the simulated situations. We have for instance sampled traffic proximate to a geofenced airport, and traffic from/to proximate logistics hubs. Consequences for UTM development in cities, for the European development of U-space U3 and U4, are discussed.

Augmented and Virtual Reality applications provide environments in which users can immerse themselves in a fully or partially virtual world and interact with virtual objects or user interfaces. User-based, formal evaluation is needed to objectively compare interaction techniques, and find their value in different use cases, and user performance metrics are the key to being able to compare those techniques in a fair and effective manner. In this paper we explore evaluation principles used for or developed explicitly for virtual environments, and survey quality metrics, based on 15 current, important publications on interaction techniques for virtual environments. We check, categorize and analyze the formal user studies, and establish and present baseline performance metrics used for evaluation on interaction techniques in VR and AR.

Hand-held smart devices are equipped with powerful processing units, high resolution screens and cameras, that in combination makes them suitable for video see-through Augmented Reality. Many Augmented Reality applications require interaction, such as selection and 3D pose manipulation. One way to perform intuitive, high precision 3D pose manipulation is by direct or indirect mapping of device movement.

There are two approaches to device movement interaction; one fixes the virtual object to the device, which therefore becomes the pivot point for the object, thus makes it difficult to rotate without translate. The second approach avoids latter issue by considering rotation and translation separately, relative to the object's center point. The result of this is that the object instead moves out of view for yaw and pitch rotations.

In this paper we study these two techniques and compare them with a modification where user perspective rendering is used to solve the rotation issues. The study showed that the modification improves speed as well as both perceived control and intuitiveness among the subjects.

This paper presents a user study on touch interaction with hand-held Video See-through Augmented Reality (V-AR). In particular, the commonly used Device Perspective Rendering (DPR) is compared with User Perspective Rendering (UPR) with respect to both performance and user experience and preferences. We present two user study tests designed to mimic the tasks that are used in various AR applications.

Looking for an object and selecting when it’s found, is one of the most used tasks in AR software. Our first test focuses on comparing UPR and DPR in a simple find and selection task. Manipulating the pose of a virtual object is another commonly used task in AR. The second test focuses on multi-touch interaction for 6 DoF object pose manipulation through UPR and DPR.

The advent of nanoscientific applications in modern life is swiftly in progress. Nanoscale innovation comes with the pressing need to provide citizens and learners with scientific knowledge for judging the societal impact of nanotechnology. In rising to the challenge, this paper reports the developmental phase of a research agenda concerned with building and investigating a virtual environment for communicating nano-ideas. Methods involved elucidating core nano-principles through two purposefully contrasting nano “risk” and “benefit” scenarios for incorporation into an immersive system. The authors implemented the resulting 3D virtual architecture through an exploration of citizens' and school students' interaction with the virtual nanoworld. Findings suggest that users' interactive experiences of conducting the two tasks based on gestural interaction with the system serve as a cognitive gateway for engendering nano-related understanding underpinning perceived hopes and fears and as a stimulating pedagogical basis from which to teach complex science concepts.

Nano education involves tackling the difficult task of conceptualizing imperceptibly small objects and processes. Interactive visualization serves as one potential solution for providing access to the nanoworld through active exploration of nanoscale concepts and principles. This chapter exposes and describes a selection of interactive visualizations in the literature, and reviews research findings related to their educational, perceptual and cognitive influence. In closing, we offer implications of interactive visualization for learning and teaching nano.

Projektets övergripande vision var att dels utveckla en virtuell miljö för att förmedla begrepp inom nanovetenskap och nanoteknik (vilket härefter kommer att benämnas med samlingstermen nano), och dels att undersöka vilken effekt interaktion med systemet har på lärande av vetenskapliga begrepp och uppfattningar kring fördelar och risker med nano hos elever och besökare vid ett science center. Utifrån detta övergripande syfte gavs projektet följande specifika mål:

• Formge, utveckla och implementera en immersiv miljö för virtuell verklighet grundad i naturvetenskap, för kommunikation av grundläggande nanovetenskapliga begrepp.
• Studera elevers och besökares interaktion med den virtuella nanomiljön som ett verktyg för utveckling av grundläggande vetenskaplig kunskap.

Projektet resulterade i utvecklingen av en miljö där gester kan användas för att styra en virtuell verklighet som möjliggör lärande om nano, samt en version av systemet som är anpassad för traditionella datorer (PC) utrustade med skärm och mus. Empiriska undersökningar av användares interaktion med den virtuella miljön visar att den erbjuder möjligheter för att förstå nanobegrepp genom att stödja kognition, kroppsliga erfarenheter, motivation, och generell användbarhet. Resultaten tyder på att immersiva virtuella miljöer kan ge stöd för att användare baserat på sina interaktiva upplevelser ska kunna utveckla kunskap om vetenskapliga kärnbegrepp, samt utveckla sådan kunskap som krävs för att bedöma upplevda möjligheter och risker med nano.

Future societal and economic impacts of nanoscience and nanotechnology raise the demand for a nano-literate public as well as a nano-competent workforce. This translates into the urgent need for nano education interventions in schools and informal learning contexts. In seeking to meet this mandate, we have developed and investigated a virtual reality environment that induces immersive presence (feeling as being ‘in’ the virtual world) and exploits bodily movements (e.g. hand gestures to control virtual objects) for students and citizens to learn nano concepts. In this article, we argue that such scientifically-informed immersive and interactive visualizations have a unique potential in communicating nanoscale ideas to students as well as the general public.

Thermal imaging cameras, commonly used in application areas such as building inspection and night vision, have recently also been introduced as pedagogical tools for helping students visualize, interrogate and interpret notoriously challenging thermal concepts. In this paper we present a system for Spatial Augmented Reality that automatically projects thermal data onto objects. Instead of having a learner physically direct a hand-held camera toward an object of interest, and then view the display screen, a group of participants can gather around the display system and directly see and manipulate the thermal profile projected onto physical objects. The system combines a thermal camera that captures the thermal data, a depth camera that realigns the data with the objects, and a projector that projects the data back. We also apply a colour scale tailored for room temperature experiments.

User-perspective rendering in Video See-through Augmented Reality (V-AR) creates a view that always shows what is behind the screen, from the users point of view. It is used for better registration between the real and virtual world instead of the traditional device-perspective rendering which displays what the camera sees. There is a small number of approaches towards user-perspective rendering that over all improve the registration between the real world, the video captured from real world that is displayed on the screen and the augmentations. There are still some registration errors that cause misalignment in the user-perspective rendering. One source of error is from the device registration which, based on the used tracking method, can be the misalignment between the camera and the screen and also the tracked frame of reference that the screen and the camera are attached to it. In this paper we first describe a method for the user perspective V-AR based on 3D projective geometry. We then address the device registration problem in user perspective rendering by presenting two methods: First, for estimating the misalignment between the camera and the screen. Second, for estimating the misalignment between the camera and the tracked frame.

As the application of nanotechnology in everyday life impacts society, it becomes critical for citizens to have a scientific basis upon which to judge their perceived hopes and fears of ‘nano’. Although multiple instruments have been designed for assessing attitudinal and affective aspects of nano, surprisingly little work has focused on developing tools to evaluate the conceptual knowledge dimension of public understanding. This article reports the validation of an instrument designed to measure conceptual knowledge of nanoscience and nanotechnology. A sample of 302 participants responded to a 28-item questionnaire designed around core nano-concepts. Factor analysis revealed a single latent variable representing the construct of nano-knowledge. Cronbach's alpha was 0.91 indicating a high internal consistency of the questionnaire items. The mean test score was 15.3 out of 28 (54.5%) with item difficulty indices ranging from 0.19 to 0.89. Obtained item discrimination values indicate a high discriminatory power of the instrument. Taken together, the psychometric properties of the Nano-Knowledge Instrument (NanoKI) suggest that it is a valid and reliable tool for measuring nano-related knowledge. Preliminary qualitative observations of citizens' incorrect and correct response patterns to the questionnaire indicate potential conceptual challenges surrounding relative size of the nanoscale, random motion of nano-objects, and nanoscale interactions, although these are hypotheses that require future investigation. Application of the NanoKI could support efforts directed to an agenda for evaluating and designing science communication and education initiatives for promoting understanding of nano.

Video see-through Augmented Reality (V-AR) displays a video feed overlaid with information, co-registered with the displayed objects. In this paper we consider the type of V-AR that is based on a hand-held device with a fixed camera. In most of the VA-R applications the view displayed on the screen is completely determined by the orientation of the camera, i.e., the device-perspective rendering; the screen displays what the camera sees. The alternative method is to use the relative pose of the user's view and the camera, i.e., the user-perspective rendering. In this paper we present an approach to the user perspective V-AR using 3D projective geometry. The view is adjusted to the user's perspective and rendered on the screen, making it an augmented window. We created and tested a running prototype based on our method.

Haptics provides powerful cues about forces but cannot easily be integrated in all relevant applications, such as education. Pseudo-haptic cues, visual information that simulate haptic sensations, have been raised as an alternative. It is, however, largely unknown how (or even if) pseudo-haptic cues are perceived by the haptic sensory modality. In this paper we present an approach that applies theories on multimodal integration to testing if a pseudo-haptic cue is triggering haptic perception. This approach is subsequently applied in designing an experiment that tests a pseudo-haptic cue based on a visual force-causes-displacement metaphor, similar to a rubber band.

The advent of nanoscientific applications in modern life is swiftly in progress. Nanoscale innovation comes with the pressing need to provide citizens and learners with scientific knowledge for judging the societal impact of nanotechnology. In rising to the challenge, this paper reports the developmental phase of a research agenda concerned with building and investigating a virtual environment for communicating nano-ideas. Methods involved elucidating core nano-principles through two purposefully contrasting nano “risk” and “benefit” scenarios for incorporation into an immersive system. The authors implemented the resulting 3D virtual architecture through an exploration of citizens’ and school students’ interaction with the virtual nanoworld. Findings suggest that users’ interactive experiences of conducting the two tasks based on gestural interaction with the system serve as a cognitive gateway for engendering nano-related understanding underpinning perceived hopes and fears and as a stimulating pedagogical basis from which to teach complex science concepts.

Rapid nanoscientific development in a myriad of applied fields compels educational structures to develop curricular nanoknowledge for a future citizenry capable of contributing skills to a nano-workforce and in acquiring a nano-literacy. This study investigated ten Swedish upper-secondary students' interactions with a virtual reality nanoworld and sought to illuminate: 1) how students link to and support their understanding of prior science knowledge, 2) students' attitudes towards the benefits and risks of nanotechnology, and 3) the usability of the system. Analyzed videotaped and written data elicited cognitive mechanisms underlying interaction with the virtual reality environment for promoting understanding, the influence of the interactive experience on students' attitudes to nanophenomena, and system features that could be applied in real science classrooms.

Recent educational research has suggested that immersive multisensory virtual environments offer learners unique and exciting knowledge-building opportunities for the construction of scientific knowledge. This paper delivers a case-based study of students’ immersive interaction with electric fields around molecules in a multisensory visuohaptic virtual environment. The virtual architecture presented here also has conceptual connections to the flourishing quest in contemporary literature for the pressing need to communicate nanoscientific ideas to learners. Five upper secondary school students’ prior conceptual understanding of electric fields and their application of this knowledge to molecular contexts, were probed prior to exposure to the virtual model. Subsequently, four students interacted with the visuohaptic model while performing think-aloud tasks. An inductive and heuristic treatment of videotaped verbal and behavioural data revealed distinct interrelationships between students’ interactive strategies implemented when executing tasks in the virtual system and the nature of their conceptual knowledge deployed. The obtained qualitative case study evidence could serve as an empirical basis for informing the rendering and communication of overarching nanoscale ideas. At the time of composing this paper for publication in the current journal, the research findings of this study have been put into motion in informing a broader project goal of developing educational virtual environments for depicting nanophenomena.

Virtual coupling, a spring-damper system between the haptic probe and its virtual representation, the proxy, is one of the most common approaches for haptic rendering. We have extended the virtual coupling by updating the spring stiffness, sometimes used to simulate compliance of a material, depending on the direction between the proxy and the probe. This anisotropic variation of the stiffness is used in exploring inhomogeneities beneath the surface allowing detection of rigid structures even when they are obscured by another structure beneath the surface. In addition, we also compensate for the energy variation of the spring to maintain passivity and increase realism. User studies were performed to survey the success rate in the detection of obscured rigid bodies beneath the surface with the modified virtual coupling algorithm and the improvement of shape perception for sub-surface objects with the additional energy compensation term providing gradient information. We also discuss potential benefits of the proposed methods as basic extensions to well-known haptic rendering algorithms which are both simpler and yield improved performance over traditional deformation simulationtechniques.

Infusion of nanotechnology applications into modern life is in progress. Nanoscale innovation comes with the ever-pressing need to provide citizens and learners with scientific knowledge for informing perceptions and attitudes surrounding the societal impact of nanotechnology. In rising to the challenge, this paper reports the first developmental phase of a broader research agenda concerned with building and investigating virtual environments for communicating nano-ideas. Methods involved elucidating core nano-principles upon which two purposefully contrasting nanotechnology “risk” and “benefit” scenario tasks were designed for incorporation into an intended virtual environment. The result was construction of a 3D immersive virtual architecture where users’ multisensory interactive experiences of conducting the two tasks are anticipated as a gateway for engendering nano-related understanding underpinning perceived hopes and fears. In this revised paper, post-acceptance for presentation, initial results from a pilot study are also presented attained from exploring learners’ and citizens’ interaction with the constructed virtual environment.

Achieving sufficient realism in deformation simulations requires consideration  of complex physical properties. The computational burden of modelling these properties requires the use of low resolution meshes to attain real time interactive performance. Medical data such as MR and CT, on the other hand, have much higher resolutions than can be practically used in deformation simulations. This results in significant amount of information loss, degenerating the ability to perceive variations in the data, especially inhomogeneities. In this paper, we address this issue by employing surfacerendering algorithms which can provide high resolution information from beneath the surface. An experiment was performed in a scenario simulating inhomogeneities of bone structure under the skin. Results have shown significant improvement for detecting inhomogeneities within deformable data while palpating the surface.

With the widespread use of deformation simulations in medical applications, the realism of the force feedback has become an important issue. In order to reach real-time performance with sufficient realism the approach of adaptivity, solution of different parts of the system with different resolutions and refresh rates, has been commonly deployed. The change in accuracy resulting from the use of adaptivity, however, has been been paid scant attention in the deformation simulation field. Presentation of error metrics is rare, while more focus is given to the real-time stability. We propose an abstract pipeline to perform error analysis for different types of deformation techniques which can consider different simulation parameters. A case study is also performed using the pipeline, and the various uses of the error estimation are discussed.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Haptic and Audio Interaction Design, HAID 2012, held in Lund, Sweden, in August 2012. The 15 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on haptics and audio in navigation, supporting experiences and activities, object and interface, test and evaluation.

Visualizing molecular properties is often crucial for constructing conceptual understanding in chemistry. However, research has revealed numerous challenges surrounding students' meaningful interpretation of the relationship between the geometry and electrostatic properties of molecules. This study explored students' (n = 18) use of three visual representations of electrostatic potential to interpret whether molecules are polar or nonpolar. The representations consisted of red and blue 'lobes' (termed RB) indicating regions of negative and positive potential, a color gradient mapping electrostatic potential on a molecular surface (MAP), and a rendering of the interface between regions of positive and negative potential (ISO). Data on students' accuracy, time-on-task, and evaluation related to the three visual modes were collected via a Web-based questionnaire. ANOVA indicated that students were significantly more accurate in interpreting ISO representations, although almost half evaluated this mode as the most difficult to use. Furthermore, students took significantly longer to interpret complex molecules than simple molecules using ISO and RB. The results indicate that there may be possible pedagogical benefits in using unconventional visual representations that reduce visual complexity by making molecular relationships explicit. Hence, this has implications for future work on the role of cognitively mapping between different instructional visualizations in the development of fundamental chemical concepts.

This book and its companion volume, LNCS 7282 and 7283, constitute the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference, EuroHaptics 2012, held in Tampere, Finland, in June 2012. The 99 papers (56 full papers, 32 short papers, and 11 demo papers) presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 153 submissions. Part I contains the full papers whereas Part II contains the short papers and the demo papers.

We believe that the lateral exploration of surfaces with varying stiffness, stiffness maps, using computer generated haptics is an underestimated and important procedure with impact in many application areas. Feeling the change of stiffness while sweeping the haptic probe over a surface can potentially give an understanding of the spatial distribution of this stiffness, however current algorithms lack tangential cues of stiffness changes. This introduces energy sources and sinks that potentially affects the stability of the system, apart from being physically incorrect and thus unrealistic. We discuss the forces and effects involved in the exploration of stiffness maps and propose an energy-based algorithm for tangential forces that augments the feedback from the map, in particular during lateral exploration. The algorithm is based on basic physical principles and has the potential to increase both realism and stability. A user study was conducted to analyze the effect of this algorithm on stiffness perception.

Understanding and explaining perception of touch is a non-trivial task. Even seemingly trivial differences in exploration may potentially have a significant impact on perception and levels of discrimination. In this study, we explore different aspects of contact related to stiffness perception and their effects on the just noticeable difference (JND) of stiffness are surveyed. An experiment has been performed on non-deformable, compliant objects in a virtual environment with three different types of contact: Discontinuous pressure, continuous pressure and continuous lateral motion. The result shows a significantly better discrimination performance in the case of continuous pressure (a special case of nonlinearity), which can be explained by the concept of haptic memory. Moreover, it is found that the perception is worse for the changes that occur along the lateral axis than the normal axis.

Haptics has in earlier work shown the potential to assist in the understanding of an otherwise overwhelming amount of information in scientific and medical visualization. In the typical scientific data, with many different properties such as pressure, temperature, strain, etc, the user is required to switch between what data to represent through the haptic feedback. In this paper we explore the possibility to simultaneously represent, in a comprehensive way, more than one property through the haptic feedback by dividing the feedback into the two components of the haptic sense. Two vibrotactile metaphors for scalar data are described, roughness and transition cue, that can be used in combination with a kinaesthetic representation of either scalar or vector data. The paper also presents an evaluation that shows that the individual cues from the two haptic metaphors can be discriminated, and that the combined feedback can be used to find combinations of features in data.

Surprisingly, very little empirical work has explored the application of students’ knowledge about electric fields to a chemistry context. In response, this paper reports a pilot study that investigated students’ conceptions about electric fields, and how interaction with a haptic virtual model impacts understanding of electric fields around molecules. Students first responded to specially-designed written free response items that probed knowledge transfer. The participants then interacted with the model while performing think-aloud tasks where different haptic modes offered by the model were activated. Qualitative induction of the data revealed that although students demonstrated a pronounced and classical understanding of electrostatic forces and electric fields, they struggled to apply this knowledge to a molecular context. Interestingly, there was a strong association between the existence of an electric field around a molecule with the notion of chemical polarity. Analysis of videotaped interaction with the model provided evidence for distinct influences on students’ understanding, which included using the model to gain unique insight into the nature of electric fields, and as a sensory tool for actively challenging existing alternative conceptions. Future work will expand the research framework presented here and also distil what specific perceptual experiences are related to any changes in knowledge.

This study aimed to investigate students’ assignment of chemical polarity using three visual modes representing electrostatic potential. The modes consisted of coloured lobes that indicate regions of negative (red) and positive (blue) potential, a colour gradient that maps the potential on the molecular surface and a novel representation that uses green surface(s) to show the interface between regions of positive and negative potential. Students’ ability to assign polarity using the three visual modes was evaluated using a web-questionnaire. Mean scores indicated that students were able to successfully assign polarity to molecules using all the modes. However, students were less successful in identifying polar molecules in comparison with non-polar molecules using the map mode. A possible explanation for the lower scores for this mode is that the representational power of the map as a polarity assignment tool could be compromised by the visual complexity of the colour gradient, especially when a molecule is polar. The green surface representation was found to be a sensitive visual tool for assigning polarity to molecules, an encouraging finding since students were exposed to this visual mode for the first time. Given the possible perceptual constraints associated with the map mode, the results of this study might serve as a basis for uncovering the best conditions for pursuing a multiple representations approach to teaching chemical polarity.

To help in interpreting the polarity of a molecule, charge separation can be visualized by mapping the electrostatic potential at the van der Waals surface using a color gradient or by indicating positive and negative regions of the electrostatic potential using different colored isosurfaces. Although these visualizations capture the molecular charge distribution efficiently, using them to deduce overall polarity requires students to engage in the potentially demanding process of interpreting the relative positions of electron-rich and electron-poor areas. We present a visual tool that could help students assign polarity by exploiting the unique topography of the interface between negative and positive regions of electrostatic potential surrounding a molecule. Specifically, the tool renders the electrostatic potential isosurface(s) of a molecule obtained when the isovalue is set at 0. Examples of polar and nonpolar molecules are discussed.

For the simulation of soft tissue deformation Finite ElementMethod (FEM) has been the technique which achieves most physicallyrealistic behaviour. However to provide stable force feedback,high refresh rates are needed which makes the use of FEMnon-trivial.To solve the challenge of the compromise between speed and realism,asynchronous regions which solves different parts of the modelwith different frequencies and different resolutions are used. Thelocal neighbourhood of the contact is solved with higher frequencyand resolution while the more remote regions are solved with lowerfrequency and resolutions. Different solution methods, implicit andexplicit, can be used to solve different regions and the size of theregions can be adapted depending on the strain to maximize theefficiency.

Different aspects of bone surgery simulation has been a popular topic in haptics research field. This demonstration paper has two major results: a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) implementation of a well known algorithm for tool-bone interaction force estimation, and an evaluation conducted as part of a suggested User-centered design approach for creation of a surgery simulator targeting Oral Surgery in particular.

In order to simulate both physically and visually realistic soft tissue deformations, the Finite Element Method (FEM) is the mostpopular choice in the literature. However it is non-trivial to modelcomplex behaviour of soft tissue with sufficient refresh rates, especiallyfor haptic force feedback which requires an update rate ofthe order of 1 kHz. In this study the use of asynchronous regions isproposed to speed up the solution of FEM equations in real-time. Inthis way it is possible to solve the local neighborhood of the contactwith high refresh rates, while evaluating the more distant regions atlower frequencies, saving computational power to model complexbehaviour within the contact area. Solution of the different regionsusing different methods is also possible. To attain maximum efficiencythe size of the regions can be changed, in real-time, in responseto the size of the deformation.