Comparing 6DOF Haptic Interfaces for Application in 3D Assembly Tasks

The task of assembling a 3D puzzle can be encountered in a number of problem areas, for instance in fields like cultural heritage or orthopedic surgical planning. In the former the reconstruction of archaeological shards is required, while in the latter fitting of bone fragments has to be accomplished. In the optimal case, this process is carried out automatically. However, at the moment this is only possible for a very limited number of fragments, thus making user guidance in the reconstruction process necessary. To this end, a haptically assisted environment can be used, which facilitates the reconstruction of the original geometry of the broken object. Key elements of such a system are real-time detection of collisions between rigid fragments, and appropriate force feedback to support the assembly process. Also, adequate haptic hardware providing 6DOF feedback has to be selected. Therefore, we examined in this study different haptic devices concerning their application to a reassembly task.