Visualization at large is the process of converting the data into a form that can be easily perceived by the human. While the visual information is the most dominant sensory input for perceiving an object, the touch feedback provides the main perception for presence of the object. Haptic rendering is the process of visualizing the touch feedback. Haptic rendering of a soft object requires not only the collision detection but also the computation of the deformation of the object so that the user can grasp the material property of the object. Palpation solely depends on a touch feedback to recognize an object underneath the opaque skin. In order to perform the palpation on a virtual object, it is necessary to have a volumetric representation of the non-rigid object.
Citation:
Jinah Park, Sang Youn Kim, Ki Uk Kyung, Dong Soo Kwon, "Evaluation of Areal Touch Feedback for Palpation Simulation," ieee_vis, pp.100, 16th IEEE Visualization 2005 (VIS 2005), 2005