REVEL: tactile feedback technology for augmented reality

Augmented Reality has recently emerged as one of the key application areas of interactive computer graphics and is rapidly expanding from research laboratories into everyday use. The fundamental premise of AR is to enable us to interact with virtual objects immediately and directly, seeing, feeling and manipulating them just as we do physical objects. Most AR applications, however, provide only visual augmentation of the real world and do not provide the means to let the user feel tactile, physical properties of virtual objects or to enhance the physical world with computer-generated tactile textures. The absence of tactile feedback does not allow us to take advantage of the powerful mechanisms of the human sense of touch and diminishes the quality of the experience.