title: FingerSight: Fingertip Haptic Sensing of the Visual Environment.
abstract: We present a novel device mounted on the fingertip for acquiring and transmitting visual information through haptic channels. In contrast to previous systems in which the user interrogates an intermediate representation of visual information, such as a tactile display representing a camera generated image, our device uses a fingertip-mounted camera and haptic stimulator to allow the user to feel visual features directly from the environment. Visual features ranging from simple intensity or oriented edges to more complex information identified automatically about objects in the environment may be translated in this manner into haptic stimulation of the finger. Experiments using an initial prototype to trace a continuous straight edge have quantified the user's ability to discriminate the angle of the edge, a potentially useful feature for higher levels analysis of the visual scene.
authors.affiliation: Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh PA USA 15213.
authors.forename: Samantha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Horvath
authors.affiliation: Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh PA USA 15213.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Galeotti
authors.affiliation: College of Technology and Innovation Arizona State University Mesa AZ USA 85212.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh PA USA 15213.
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Klatzky
authors.affiliation: Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh PA USA 15213.
authors.forename: Mel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Siegel
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering University of Pittsburgh PA USA 15261.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Stetten
keywords: Visually impaired; blind; haptics; sensory substitution