Section: New Software and Platforms

tIO (tactile input & output)

Participants : Marc-Antoine Dupre, Matthieu Falce, Nicolas Roussel [correspondant] , Takashi Miyaki.

tIO is a library designed to facilitate the implementation of doubly tactile interaction techniques (tactile input coupled with tactile feedback) based on the STIMTAC technology. Supporting all current STIMTAC prototypes, it makes it easy to move the system pointer of the host computer according to motions detected on them and adapt their vibration amplitude based on the color of the pointed pixel or the nature of the pointed object. The library includes a set of demo applications that illustrate these two different approaches and makes it easy to “augment” existing Qt applications with tactile feedback. It also makes it possible to supplement or substitute tactile feedback with basic auditory feedback synthesized using portaudio (friction level is linearly mapped to the frequency of a sine wave). This not only facilitates the development and documentation of tactile-enhanced applications but also makes it easier to demonstrate them to a large audience.

Software characterization : A2, SO3-up, SM-2, EM2, SDL1.