The 3D contact point (r_wobj, θ_wobj, φ_wobj) can be determined from F_x, M_B, M_D during active whisking.

The data in this figure exclude small angle deflections, i.e., any point that lay less than sclosest*tan(2°) from the whisker, where sclosest is the arc length of the point on the whisker closest to the contact point. (A) Top and front views from the raw video data of a rat whisking forward into the back of the peg (left two images) and backwards into the front of the peg (right two images). The tracked whisker is traced in red. (B) The Fx, MB, and MD data output by the model as the rat whisked into the peg. Note the sudden change in MD when the rat switches from whisking forward to whisking backward into the peg. (C) Fx, MB, and MD from B plotted onto the mapping visualizations for rwobj, θwobj, and φwobj. These visualizations show the relevant parts of the mappings from Fig 3D, and the monochromatic layers are plotted as translucent for better visualization. The black dots represent the data from B plotted onto Fx, MB, MD space. The color of the “solid” at the black dots in each of the three plots gives the contact point location coordinates: rwobj, θwobj, φwobj. (D) The rwobj, θwobj, and φwobj values given by the mappings in C (E) Tracked values of rwobj, θwobj, and φwobj plotted against the values of rwobj, θwobj, and φwobj as predicted from the mechanical signals. The dots are translucent to improve visualization. The black diagonal line represents where the dots would lie if the 3D contact points computed from the mechanical signals were perfect.