The CHAI Libraries

In this paper we present CHAI, a set of haptic/graphics C++ libraries that were developed in the last years by a varied group of researchers. The CHAI libraries allow both high level and low level programming of haptic applications. Users that are not interested in implementation details can easily build visual-haptic scenes using a large set of pre-implemented algorithms. However, differently from other existing haptic libraries, the CHAI libraries allow users to tweak with low level details, such as changing the control algorithms for supported devices or adding new custom devices. CHAI is a growing project, one featuring the efforts of many researchers around the world. A steering committee will periodically review any proposed addition to the libraries and publish new extended releases. Some demos created using CHAI, as well as the main features of the libraries, will be demonstrated during Eurohaptics demo session. In such occasions CD-ROMs containing the latest release of CHAI, as well as its documentation, will be freely handed out to anyone who is