Gaming in the Fourth Dimension

Saurabh Palan, a Penn engineering graduate student, helped to create this Tactile Gaming Vest, that gives you the sensation of being shot when you play a first person shooter game.

See a behind-the-scenes look at how the University of Pennsylvania is developing this haptic vest here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-SgRG87W1c

Rather than pour over calculations, Palan and his collaborators gun their way through multiple levels of the video game Half Life 2. Palan created the vest as a haptic feedback device in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science. Each blast from the enemy is registered as an impact or vibration through the vest. It takes 12 small motors in the vest, controlled by the team's custom engineering, to add the fourth dimension of feeling to the game.

When applied to teleoperation, haptic interfaces allow engineers to control the motion of a robot manipulator in an unreachable environment, such as the depths of the sea or the operative site in minimally invasive robot-assisted surgery. Playing in Half Life 2's fictional dystopia is an enjoyable way to highlight the fields importance in creating computational models of physical environments to facilitate, for example, surgical training, or in more general human-computer interactions for education or entertainment.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• gaming
• game
• first person shooter
• video
• university of pennsylvania
• university
• pennsylvania
• penn
• upenn
• haptic vest gaming engineering

[SSmithProductions]

I don't think "feeling" something make it 4th dimensional. We "feel" things in the 3rd dimension all the time, that doesn't make us in the 4th dimension.

[lewisisdaman]

...tactical nuke cud hurt a bit

[TheUltimateCynic]

@SSmithProductions It depends on the TYPE of dimension. You are limiting the discussion to spatial dimensions. A dimension can be a parameter used to describe the uniqueness of an event or object. Temporal dimensions, color, sound, etc.

[JxSx99]

@SSmithProductions the 4th dimension is supose to be the time, feeling has nothing to do with feeling something

[DavidK1616]

Repeat Pressing 7 = Lame Laser

Repeat Pressing 9 = Retarded Robot

[malonemalo]

PLAYERS MY ASS, N00BS. THEY PLAY WITH THE CURSOR KEYS!!!

[thaddeusgalkowski]

You should make a 2d suit...

[head2fiststyle12345]

put one on your balls so if you get hit in the nuts in game you feel it in rl, nice inventions.

[jubo90]

and what makes this gaming in the fourth dimension? lol, they just put on a suite that stimulates where you are hit or whatever. That has nothing to do with an extra dimention....

[DamnedTheMan3]

I wonder when they're going to take it to the next level and actually have people get shot when lose in video games...

[PiromancerFreak]

gaming is my passion and future i'm already learning how to make 3D games and i'm only 15