Tangible sketching of interactive haptic materials

The activity of sketching can be highly beneficial when applied to the design of haptic material interaction. To illustrate this approach we created a design tool with a tangible hardware interface to facilitate the act of haptic material sketching and used this tool to design an anatomy exploration application. We found this approach particularly efficient in designing non-visual properties of haptic materials. The design tool enabled instant tactile perception of changes in material properties combined with the ability to make on-the-fly adjustments, thus creating a sense of pliability.