ABSTRACT
The phrase haptic rendering was introduced by Salisbury et al. [1995] to designate a set of “algorithms for generating the force of interaction with virtual objects.” In this seminal paper, many of the key issues associated with the implementation of virtual environments were first described. In contrast, here we discuss the concept of “haptic synthesis,” i.e. a set of algorithms designed to reduce the amount of online computations to a small and predictable amount, and yet able to synthesize signals that are physically accurate. The desire for a fixed, reduced amount of computation is not primarily motivated by the limitations of today’s microprocessors, but rather by basic facts about the physics of mechanical interaction between the macroscopic objects of interest in virtual reality simulations.1
