IEEE Transactions on Haptics Seeks New Editor in Chief for 2014-2015 Term

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From the January-March 2013 issue

Lossy Data Compression of Vibrotactile Material-Like Textures

By Shogo Okamoto and Yoji Yamada

Tactile content will be delivered over the Internet in the near future. Vibrotactile material-like textures that resemble the surfaces of wood, leather, etc., are representative of such content. We performed lossy compression of texture data for reducing the data size. We confirmed the effectiveness of two compression strategies: quantization and truncation of data beneath a shifted perceptual threshold curve. In the quantization strategy, the amplitude spectra of vibrotactile textures could be quantized in 14 steps. This reduced the data size to approximately one quarter without any noticeable quality deterioration. The method for truncating frequency components with amplitudes smaller than a shifted perceptual threshold curve was also effective, and it was preferable to the automatic deletion of subthreshold amplitudes. We reduced the data size of vibrotactile material textures to 10-20 percent of their original size by combining the lossy data compression strategy with Huffman coding, which is a lossless data compression method. Lossy compression algorithms will enhance the online delivery of vibrotactile material-like textures by decreasing their data size without significant loss of quality.

 View the PDF of this article       View this issue in the digital library

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Editorials and Announcements

Announcements

• Listen to the ToH Podcast: Overview of the October-December 2012 Issue by William Provancher
• ToH celebrates its 5th anniversary
• eBooks of issues of ToH can now be downloaded from the Computer Society Digital Library
• 2008-2011 Citations for Meritorious Service
• J. Edward Colgate featured in this month's Volunteer Spotlight

Editorials

• Editorial (Jan-March 2013)
• EIC Editorial (Jan-March 2012)
• EIC Editorial (April-June 2011)
• EIC Editorial (Jan-Mar 2011)

Guest Editorials

• Haptic Human-Robot Interaction (July-Sept 2012)
• Guest Editorial for Special Section on Consumer Electronics (Jan-March 2012)
• Haptics in Medicine and Clinical Skill Acquisition (July-Sept 2011)

News

• Role of Haptics in Surgical Robotics: Report on a Workshop (PDF)

Call for Papers

• Call for Papers for the 32nd International Conference on Consumer Electronics 2014 (URL)
  Submission deadline: June 5, 2013.
• Submit your papers to ToH. Open Ended call for papers (PDF)

Annual Index

• The 2011 Haptics Annual Index is now available. (PDF)

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ToH is a joint publication of the IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society.

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ToH podcasts

Listen to the ToH Podcast: Overview of the January-March 2013 Issue by William Provancher

This Podcast gives an overview of the articles in the January-March 2013 issue.

Listen to the ToH Podcast: Overview of the October-December 2012 Issue by William Provancher

This Podcast gives an overview of the articles in the October-December issue.

Listen to the ToH Podcast: Overview of the July-September 2012 Special Issue on Haptic-Human Robot Interaction by William Provancher

This Podcast gives an overview of the eight articles in the July-September Special Issue on Haptic-Human Robot Interaction.

Listen to the ToH Podcast: Interview with Guest Editor Allison Okamura

This interview features a discussion between AE Federico Barbagli and Allison Okamura, one of the guest editors of the Special Section on Haptics in Medicine and Clinical Skill Acquisition in the July-September 2011 issue, about how this special section came about and the six chosen papers.

Listen to the ToH Podcast: Interview with the Authors of "The Role of Haptics in Medical Training Simulators: A Survey of the State of the Art"

AE Federico Barbagli interviews Timothy R. Coles, Dwight Meglan, and Nigel W. John, authors of "The Role of Haptics in Medical Training Simulators: A Survey of the State of the Art" from the January-March 2011 issue, where they discuss the purpose and benefits of medical training simulators.

Listen to the ToH Podcast: World Haptics Spotlight Section

In this interview, AE Federico Barbaglia and Lynette Jones, one of the Guest Editors of the World Haptics Spotlight Section in the July-September 2010 issue, discuss the five papers featured in this issue.

Listen to the ToH Podcast: Review of Designs for Haptic Data Visualization

AE Federico Barbagli Interviews Sabrina Paneels and Jonathan C. Roberts, authors of "Review of Designs for Haptic Data Visualization" from the April-June 2010 issue, where they define the field of haptic data visualization, give examples of its application, and discuss the motivation for their work.

 

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A word from Editor-in-Chief J. Edward Colgate