PREDICTING HAPTIC PERCEPTION OF TEXTILE TEXTURE AND ANALYSIS BETWEEN SMOOTH-ROUGH PREFERENCES THROUGH IMAGES

Digital images of textile surfaces often trigger assumptions about their actual tactile properties. For any given textile cloth sample, visually perceived tactile properties may not always match with actual haptic sensations. But many decisions related to textiles, right from their manufacturing to end use stages, are often taken on the basis of visual perceptions alone. Smooth-rough modalities are a significant tactile property that influences such decisions. This paper examines “look and feel” and “touch and feel” impressions triggered by human haptic interactions with textiles. Smooth-rough perceptions obtained from high resolution and full images of textile samples were compared with actual haptic sensations derived from the same samples. A three phase experiment was conducted followed by a semi-structured interview with the participants and the results were statistically analyzed. The results indicate that there is a strong positive correlation between high-resolution image and real cloth haptic perception