Disney Research Develops Tactile 3D Touchscreen

When some of us hear the name Disney Research, the immediate assumption is that it’s a lab devoted to developing better animatronics or some other similarly whimsical application of bleeding-edge technology. But a new development from the lab could completely change the way we use touchscreens by adding realistic tactile feedback to the 3D images displayed.

In a new video (see above), Disney Research shows off a process it calls “rendering 3D tactile features on touch surfaces.” For the project, the researchers used an electrovibration-based display and a new algorithm developed in-house to allow the human hand to feel the textures of objects as presented on the screen. Read more...