Virtual Exertions: a user interface combining visual information, kinesthetics and biofeedback for virtual object manipulation

Figure 1: Using visual information, kinesthetics and biofeedback from electromyograms (EMG), users can grasp, move and drop virtual objects. Virtual Reality environments have the ability to present users with rich visual representations of simulated environments. However, means to interact with these types of illusions are generally unnat-ural in the sense that they do not match the methods humans use to grasp and move objects in the physical world. We demonstrate a system that enables users to interact with virtual objects with nat-ural body movements by combining visual information, kinesthet-ics and biofeedback from electromyograms (EMG). Our method allows virtual objects to be grasped, moved and dropped through muscle exertion classification based on physical world masses. We show that users can consistently reproduce these calibrated exer-tions, allowing them to interface with objects in a novel way