Virtual Hair Handle: A Model for Haptic Hairstyling

Abstract

The process of styling virtual hair is a tedious task for 3D artists, who would significantly profit from more natural and intuitive ways of creating virtual hairstyles - such as, for example, the possibility to simply comb virtual hair using a haptic device. However, despite significant advances in hair simulation during the last decades, physically based haptic interaction with hair is still an unresolved problem. In this paper, we propose a real-time simulation framework allowing to interactively style virtual hair and feel a force-feedback through a haptic device. Unlike previous approaches, we adapt our hair simulation model to fulfil the requirements of haptic interaction. Our model reproduces, on a physical basis, hair behaviour and interaction forces arising when touching hair.