"If you can see something on your computer, why shouldn't you be able to feel it? Touch is an important part of the sensory experience of being a human," says Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. With support from the National Science Foundation, she is working on capturing how an object feels and realistically recreating those sensations so that you can feel a virtual version of the object through a computer and other devices. She calls this process haptography or haptic (touch) photography, and it has many applications from medical simulation and training to online shopping.
