Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation for Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) at the University of Pennsylvania, explains the work she and her research team are conducting on haptic photography. Haptography, like photography in the visual domain, enables an individual to quickly record the haptic feel of a real object and reproduce it later for others to interact with in a variety of contexts. Particular positive ramifications of establishing the approach of haptography are to let doctors and dentists create haptic records of medical afflictions such as a decayed tooth surface to assist in diagnosis and patient health tracking; to improve the realism and consequent training efficacy of haptic surgical simulators and other computer-based education tools; to allow a wide range of people, such as museum goers and online shoppers, to touch realistic virtual copies of valuable items; to facilitate a haptographic approach to low-bandwidth and time-delayed teleoperation, as found in space exploration; and to enable new insights on human and robot touch capabilities.

Video and description courtesy of University of Pennsylvania and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker