A Desktop Virtual Reality System with Physical Animation and Glove Interaction

Abstract

This paper describes the on-going development of a desktop virtual reality system which offers real-time user interaction and realistic physics-based animation of rigid objects. The system is built upon a graphical engine which supports scene graphs, and a physics-based engine which enables collision detection. Full hand pose estimation is achieved through a dataglove and motion tracker. Motion of the user's hand is coupled to a 3D model of the human hand. A virtual grasping algorithm ensures stability and allows manipulation tasks to be performed even on complex shapes such as triangle meshes. The system supports ballistic motion of falling objects and models grasped objects with a spring-damper scheme. Moreover, vibratory output is generated as feedback to the user.