Haptizing wind on a weather map with reactive force and vibration

Abstract

This paper describes a model for baptizing wind on a weather map. To design the model, we examined the human sensory scale to represent wind speed and direction with appropriate haptic stimuli, and examined parameters of the stimulus that allow a user to easily recognize changes in wind speed and direction. The results of these experiments show that vibration frequency can represent wind speed while a constant reactive force represents direction. The model solves a problem users of reactive force-only systems have difficulty identifying direction when the force is small due to light wind. Based on the model, we have developed a prototype weather information system with visual and haptic information. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2005.