Configurable Design of Multimodal Non Visual Interfaces fro 3D VEs

3D virtual environments (VE) require an advanced user interface to fully express their information contents. New I/O devices enable the use of multiple sensorial channels (vision, hearing, touch, etc.) to increase the naturalness and the efficiency of complex interactions. Haptic and acoustic interfaces extend the effective experience of virtual reality to visually impaired users. For these users, a multimodal rendering that matches the subjective characteristics and the personal abilities of individuals is mandatory to provide a complete and correct perception of the virtual scene. User feedbacks are critical since the design phase. This paper proposes an approach for the design of haptic/acoustic user interface to makes up the lack of visual feedback in blind users interaction. It increases the flexibility of the interface development by decoupling the multimodal rendering design from the VE geometric structure. An authoring tool allows experts of the knowledge domain (even without specific skills about the VE) to design the haptic/acoustic rendering of virtual objects. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.