LCSR Seminar: Heather Culbertson

Description

Heather Culbertson, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, will give a talk titled "Using Data for Increased Realism with Haptic Modeling and Devices" for the Laboratory for Computational Sensing + Robotics.

Abstract:

The haptic (touch) sensations felt when interacting with the physical world create a rich and varied impression of objects and their environment. Humans can discover a significant amount of information through touch with their environment, allowing them to assess object properties and qualities, dexterously handle objects, and communicate social cues and emotions. Humans are spending significantly more time in the digital world, however, and are increasingly interacting with people and objects through a digital medium. Unfortunately, digital interactions remain unsatisfying and limited, representing the human as having only two sensory inputs: visual and auditory.

This talk will focus on methods for building haptic and multimodal models that can be used to create realistic virtual interactions in mobile applications and in virtual reality. I will discuss data-driven modeling methods that involve recording force, vibration, and sounds data from direct interactions with the physical objects. I will compare this to new methods using machine learning to generate and tune haptic models using human preferences.