Tactile displays are deformable surfaces that simulate skin deformations that occur when interacting with real surfaces (relieves) by transmitting small-scale shape information and vibration to the fingertip. We present a new vibrotactile display system composed of a matrix of 8/spl times/8 tactile display, a control/power system (electrical hardware) and a software interface dedicated to translate and display a black and white picture on the 8/spl times/8 tactile display with different close-ups. The 8/spl times/8 tactile display is based on a new multi-layer concept. This concept allows developing a new generation of tactile matrices with a high density of micro actuators, a simple assembling process and at a quite competitive price.

Tactile displays simulate skin deformations that occur when interacting with real surfaces (relieves) by transmitting small-scale shape information and vibration to the fingertip. In this paper, we present a new tactile interface VT (vector-touch) that is based on a rod network positioned in parallel to each other, electric motors to induce a rotation and a positioning mechanism that allows rotating rods to be positioned at different interspaces. Using a rather limited number of actuators, the rods can be driven in such manner to obtain various types of relieves or surface qualities.