Reconceiving Digital Textures with Customizable Haptic Rendering

In this study, we develop a method to touch and feel images of textured wall paints by organizing the image pixels into regions based on their gray-scale values. All the image pixels inside a given region have a common haptic property. This approach is intended to solve a domain problem for textured wall paint manufacturers who can create digital versions of their textured wall paint designs instead of maintaining a physical catalogue. The number of regions in an image and the haptic properties of each region can be customized to replicate the tactile sensation of real world wall paint textures. A study conducted with 20 participants revealed an 87% probability, that an end user can make a buying decision for a textured wall paint based on this experience.