Signal Processing for Haptic Surface Modeling: a Review

Haptic feedback has been integrated into Virtual and Augmented Reality, complementing acoustic and visual information and contributing to an all-round immersive experience in multiple fields, spanning from the medical domain to entertainment and gaming. Haptic technologies involve complex cross-disciplinary research that encompasses sensing, data representation, interactive rendering, perception, and quality of experience. The standard processing pipeline, consists of (I) sensing physical features in the real world using a transducer, (II) modeling and storing the collected information in some digital format, (III) communicating the information, and finally, (IV) rendering the haptic information through appropriate devices, thus producing a user experience (V) perceptually close to the original physical world. Among these areas, sensing, rendering and perception have been deeply investigated and are the subject of different comprehensive surveys available in the literature. Differently, research dealing with haptic surface modeling and data representation still lacks a comprehensive dissection. In this work, we aim at providing an overview on modeling and representation of haptic surfaces from a signal processing perspective, covering the aspects that lie in between haptic information acquisition on one side and rendering and perception on the other side. We analyze, categorize, and compare research papers that address the haptic surface modeling and data representation, pointing out existing gaps and possible research directions.