HaptiXML
Although the visual channel probably represents the most predominant modality to convey information in today's computer-based systems, studying when and where an alternative modality may be used instead is still an open and interesting problem. Even more challenging is when the virtual channel could or should stay/be part while offering a supplementary modality for non-visual interaction.
A significant case is when we would like to offer simultaneously visual and haptic interaction: on the one hand the visual channel is preferred by users experiencing no problem in using it; on the other hand, the haptic channel could be used by impaired users, and the combination of both modalities could be offered to those who suffer from more sight impairment, but who are not blind: when the visual impairment is important, the tendency would be to rely more on the haptic interaction (haptic dominant interaction) as opposed to the visual interaction when the visual impairment is light, but existing.
HaptiXML is a software interpreter that generates 3D graphical User interfaces with Haptic interaction based on UsiXML specifications.
The goal of the HapticBrowser project is to try a different approach in web page browsing, via haptic environments. The target group is mainly the blind users. With this application blind people can navigate through WWW not by vision but BY TOUCH!
The main idea is that each HTML component is presented in a 3D scene as a 3D object. The correspondence between these two completely different things (HTML component - 3D object) consitutes a research topic, especially when the 3D object must have characteristics (shape, friction, etc.) that have meaning for a blind person when he "touches" it via the PHANTOM haptic device. 3D HapticWebBrowser is under development and currently only 7 HTML components are supported :
- text:
- hyperlink:
- image:
- image/hyperlink:
- button:
- inputText:
- listBox:
Videos
Several demosntration videos are available:
- Haptic 3D hapget set: a hapget is a haptically-enhanced widget to be browsed for both sighted and blind persons simultaneously
- Haptic browsing of a tree
- Rendering a UsiXML file in Swing
- Rendering the same UsiXML file in haptic mode
- Haptic browser with web pages examples
Features
3D HapticWebBrowser main features are:
- mouse support
- PHANTOM desktop support
- text-to-speech
- speech recognition
- UsiXML V1.8.0 support
- OGRE 3D Rendering Engine
- CEGUI API for GUI
- ImageMagick
- MagicLibrary & OgreMagic
- LLMozLib & uBrowser
- PhysX & NxOgre
- Xerces C++ Parser
- Blender for the creation of the 3D models.
Author
HaptiXML is developed by Nick Kaklanis in the context of the Similar network of excellence.
