Visual Debugger for Single-Point-Contact Haptic Rendering

Haptic applications are difficult to debug due to their high update rate and many factors influencing their execution. In this paper, we describe a practical visual debugger for single-point-of-contact haptic devices of impedance-type. The debugger can easily be incorporated into the running haptic application. The visualization shows the position trajectory with timing information and associated data like goal positions and computed feedback forces. Also, there are several options for in detail analysis of the feedback force applied at each time instance. We show with several use cases taken from practical experience that the system is well suited for locating common and intricate problems of haptic applications.