A Versatile Tool for Haptic Feedback Design Towards Enhancing User Experience in Virtual Reality Applications

The past 15 years of extensive experience teaching VR system development has taught us that haptic feedback must be more sophisticatedly integrated into VR systems, alongside the already realistic high-fidelity visual and audio feedback. The third generation of students is enhancing VR interactive e...

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Main Authors: Vasilije Bursać, Dragan Ivetić
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-05-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/10/5419
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author Vasilije Bursać
Dragan Ivetić
author_facet Vasilije Bursać
Dragan Ivetić
author_sort Vasilije Bursać
collection DOAJ
description The past 15 years of extensive experience teaching VR system development has taught us that haptic feedback must be more sophisticatedly integrated into VR systems, alongside the already realistic high-fidelity visual and audio feedback. The third generation of students is enhancing VR interactive experiences by incorporating haptic feedback through traditional, proven, commercially available gamepad controllers. Insights and discoveries gained through this process contributed to the development of versatile Unity custom editor tool, which is the focus of this article. The developed tool supports a wide range of use cases, enabling the visual, parametric, and descriptive creation of reusable haptic effects. To enhance productivity in commercial development, it supports the creation of haptic and haptic/audio stimulus libraries, which can be further expanded and combined based on object-oriented principles. Additionally, the tool allows for the definition of specific areas within the virtual space where these stimuli can be experienced, depending on the virtual object the avatar holds and the activities they perform. This intuitive platform allows the design of reusable haptic effects through graphical editor, audio conversion, programmatic scripting, and AI-powered guidance. The sophistication and usability of the tool have been demonstrated through several student VR projects across various application areas.
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spelling doaj-art-3cfb29593c844ca680f90a0b7c5f73452025-08-20T03:14:35ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172025-05-011510541910.3390/app15105419A Versatile Tool for Haptic Feedback Design Towards Enhancing User Experience in Virtual Reality ApplicationsVasilije Bursać0Dragan Ivetić1Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, 21000 Novi Sad, SerbiaFaculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, 21000 Novi Sad, SerbiaThe past 15 years of extensive experience teaching VR system development has taught us that haptic feedback must be more sophisticatedly integrated into VR systems, alongside the already realistic high-fidelity visual and audio feedback. The third generation of students is enhancing VR interactive experiences by incorporating haptic feedback through traditional, proven, commercially available gamepad controllers. Insights and discoveries gained through this process contributed to the development of versatile Unity custom editor tool, which is the focus of this article. The developed tool supports a wide range of use cases, enabling the visual, parametric, and descriptive creation of reusable haptic effects. To enhance productivity in commercial development, it supports the creation of haptic and haptic/audio stimulus libraries, which can be further expanded and combined based on object-oriented principles. Additionally, the tool allows for the definition of specific areas within the virtual space where these stimuli can be experienced, depending on the virtual object the avatar holds and the activities they perform. This intuitive platform allows the design of reusable haptic effects through graphical editor, audio conversion, programmatic scripting, and AI-powered guidance. The sophistication and usability of the tool have been demonstrated through several student VR projects across various application areas.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/10/5419gamepad vibration/rumblehaptic feedbackvisual editorhaptic design toolgame development educationimmersive environments
spellingShingle Vasilije Bursać
Dragan Ivetić
A Versatile Tool for Haptic Feedback Design Towards Enhancing User Experience in Virtual Reality Applications
Applied Sciences
gamepad vibration/rumble
haptic feedback
visual editor
haptic design tool
game development education
immersive environments
title A Versatile Tool for Haptic Feedback Design Towards Enhancing User Experience in Virtual Reality Applications
title_full A Versatile Tool for Haptic Feedback Design Towards Enhancing User Experience in Virtual Reality Applications
title_fullStr A Versatile Tool for Haptic Feedback Design Towards Enhancing User Experience in Virtual Reality Applications
title_full_unstemmed A Versatile Tool for Haptic Feedback Design Towards Enhancing User Experience in Virtual Reality Applications
title_short A Versatile Tool for Haptic Feedback Design Towards Enhancing User Experience in Virtual Reality Applications
title_sort versatile tool for haptic feedback design towards enhancing user experience in virtual reality applications
topic gamepad vibration/rumble
haptic feedback
visual editor
haptic design tool
game development education
immersive environments
url https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/10/5419
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