Thermoesthesia


'Kumiko Kushiyama Kumiko Kushiyama / ' PRESTO / JST PRESTO / JST

Thermoesthesia is a new style of interactive artwork with an original thermal sense display. The thermal sense display has been developed to allow users to feel the temperature of the visually displayed objects, which are cool or warm, by directly touching the objects.

The primary objective of this work is to enrich the touch expression. Thermoesthesia is expected to extend the style of the interactive information access activity in daily life that is ubiquitous in our information-intensive society. Thermoesthesia offers audiences the experience of not only touching and feeling, but also of interacting directly with the images using their hands. The interaction with a redesigned and simulated physical phenomenon allows the audiences to re-experience the phenomenon in a different, unfamiliar way, which provides a chance to rediscover the world.

Thermal sense display
The basic concept of the project is to add the actual thermal property, such as cool or warm, to each part of the images projected on a screen. We used 80 Peltier device modules for the thermal display. Each module consists of stacked 40 x 40 millimeters Peltier devices. The upper surface of each module, where the audiences touch, was cooled or warmed by switching the current of the Peltier modules by using a PC and electric switching circuits. The thermal display range of the developed device is from 5 to 45 degrees C.

Interactive image generation
Furthermore, the photo-sensor based touch-panel system using infrared LEDs, which is implemented two millimeters above the screen, detects the hand position. The hand contact detection allows users to actively interact with the images that have thermal properties.

As the typical interactive content with thermal sense, “Cold-snow crystal” is the simulation of snow crystals growth. The real-time interactive program was developed using C language and openGL library. Nakaya diagram, was utilized to generate various forms of snow crystals, in accordance with the air temperature and the humidity.

Thermoesthesia was proposed for a new style of interactive communication based on virtual reality technology. The authors hope that the proposed work will stimulate the various fields and open up a way for future interactive creations.

Project team: Toshiie Kitazawa, Shinji Sasada, Mototsugu Tamura / Japan Electronics College
This project was supported by PRESTO / JST, Japan Science and Technology Agency