On the effects of haptic display in brush and ink simulation for Chinese painting and calligraphy

In this paper, we develop an interactive haptic system, which can be further aid for digital Chinese painting. When an artist is holding our force feedback device, one feels like holding a real painting brush with all the contact and bending forces, since the viscosity, friction, and the bending force of a brush touching the paper are simulated. First we derive a physical dynamics model as bending springs for bristles to construct a 3D brush. Then we simulate the ink-water transfer system for ink spreading and color blending. Our system is a real-time system and users can interact with it holding a digital brush supported by either a Phantom force feedback device or a "WACOM pressure sensing pen" on a tablet. A pilot experiment was conducted, and the results show that brush writing with haptic feedback is better than that of same visual display but without haptic feedback.