Function-based haptic collaboration in X3D

Abstract

We seek to further expand X3D by augmenting it with functionbased definitions of geometry, appearance and tangible physical properties. Besides using alone, the introduced nodes can augment and enrich the standard X3D shapes by function-defined geometry, appearance and tangible physical properties. These new virtual objects can be explored haptically with various desktop forcefeedback devices. We also propose a general visual and haptic collaborative framework for using it with X3D. We implement it as new pilot versions of BS Collaborate server and BS Contact VRML/X3D viewer. In our collaborative framework, two pipelines - visual and haptic-complement each other to provide a simple and efficient solution to problems requiring collaboration in shared virtual spaces on the web.