Abstract
We propose a method to aid a haptic device optimization task using Interactive Evolutionary Computation (IEC). The haptic device allows a user to touch 3D objects in virtual environments. The proposed method enables the user to intuitively create a touchable 3D object without demanding a specific knowledge about the device and any programming skills. The user touches a dozen 3D models generated by the system and rates them based on his/her subjective preference. Then, the system evolves the models using genetic algorithm (GA) based on the rates. A set of the user's subjective rating and the system's simulated evolution is iterated until the user gets a satisfactory result. We developed both an IEC-based haptic optimization tool and a manual configuration tool, and conducted a comparative experiment to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
