eXperimental Haptic Tablet

March 2007

Engineering undergrads at the University of Waterloo have to complete a 4th year design project. My group chose to design a graphics tablet that provided a form of haptic feedback to simulate paintbrushes with a stylus. As part of the project, groups have to present a poster, so I quickly put together a graphic to use. On the left is the envisioned final product with the haptic stylus (blue pen). On the right is a child's painting of a dinosaur attacking a nuclear power plant (the gray blob). The paintbrush was fun to do, the bristles were rendered using the Saslite that comes with LightWave. The full scene is lit by a few area lights.