Abstract
We have developed a tactile display that is attached to a user's fingertip. The display presents the touch status between the user's finger and a virtual spatial object by means of a vibratory stimulus. The display is equipped with ten vibratory pins, that are in contact with the surface of an index fingertip or of a thumb. By changing the pattern of vibration, the display presents the geometrical features of an object's surface such as a vertex, an edge, and a plane. An experiment was performed to confirm the user's ability to discriminate among the patterns. A pick-and-place model task in a virtual space was also performed to reveal the effectiveness of the tactile presentation during virtual object manipulation. The results showed that the tactile presentation improved the task completion time and the positional accuracy of the manipulated object.
