Interaction Metaphors for Modeling Virtual Hair using Haptic Interfaces

Shaping realistic hairstyles for digital characters is a difficult, long and tedious task. The lack of appropriate interaction metaphors enabling efficient and simple, yet accurate hair modeling further aggravates the situation. This paper presents 3D interaction metaphors for modeling virtual hair using haptic interfaces. We discuss user tasks, ergonomic aspects, as well as haptics-based styling and finetuning tools on an experimental prototype. In order to achieve faster haptic rates with respect to the hair simulation and obtain a transparent rendering, we adapt our simulation models to comply with the specific requirements of haptic hairstyling actions and decouple the simulation of the hair strand dynamics from the haptic rendering while relying on the same physiochemical hair constants. Besides the direct use of the discussed interaction metaphors in the 3D modeling area, the presented results have further application potential in hair modeling facilities for the entertainment industry and the cosmetic sciences.