Dynamically controlling the shape of an object by means of a 3-D shape interface offers many new opportunities in the fields of virtual reality and design as direct exploration of objects becomes feasible. Using a parallel kinematics as 3-D shape interface comes with features such as high stiffness and speed, but requires a series of points to be controlled simultaneously and loop constraints to be met. In this paper we present an approach of controlling the shape of a 3-D parallel kinematics. Shape, loop constraints, and constraints resulting from the user interaction are considered in the form of a hierarchical framework and joint limitations are taken into account. Two alternative control modes for stiff and compliant objects are presented. Implicit surfaces as well as polygon sets represent the input for the virtual shape to be rendered. Results show that the calculation of the inverse kinematics can be achieved with a sampling rate of 1 kHz, independent of the representation of the shape as implicit surface or polygonal set, guaranteeing a sufficiently high sampling rate typical for haptic devices.

Interacting with 3D-shape objects using bare hands represents a very intuitive way to explore object shapes and offers lots of new opportunities in the field of virtual reality and design. Only a few 3D-shape interfaces are known, but their resolution is rather low and/or they are not actuated. Thus, a new design for an actuated 3D-shape interface with a comparatively high resolution is presented, which can be further extended to cover larger interaction areas. The kinematics of the device is analyzed and a numerical solution for the inverse kinematics is presented. The ability to form predefined shapes is analyzed. The presented interface can display basic shapes like cylinders or spheres, and due to its specific kinematic design, can easily be mounted as end-effector to kinesthetic haptic interfaces.

Dynamically rendering the shape of an object offers a lot of new opportunities in the fields of virtual reality, design, and prototyping as bare hand interaction represents a very intutive way to explore objects. We propose a 3D-shape interface formed by a parallel kinematics connecting multiple nodes and present an inverse kinematics based on a retargeting algorithm to control these nodes. The shape is formed by simultaneously taking into account loop constraints, joint limits and user interaction points. Two alternative control modes for stiff and compliant objects are introduced and compared with each other in simulations.

In the BEAMING project we have been extending the scope of collaborative mixed reality to include the representation of users in multiple modalities, including augmented reality, situated displays and robots. A single user (a visitor) uses a high-end virtual reality system (the transporter) to be virtually teleported to a real remote location (the destination). The visitor may be tracked in several ways including emotion and motion capture. We reconstruct the destination and the people within it (the locals). In achieving this scenario, BEAMING has integrated many heterogeneous systems. In this paper, we describe the design and key implementation choices in the Beaming Scene Service (BSS), which allows the various processes to coordinate their behaviour. The core of the system is a light-weight shared object repository that allows loose coupling between processes with very different requirements (e.g. embedded control systems through to mobile apps). The system was also extended to support the notion of presence awareness. We demonstrate two complex applications built with the BSS.