Multimodal Rendering of Walking Over Virtual Grounds

The addition of multimodal feedback during navigation in a virtual environment is fundamental when aiming at fully immersive and realistic simulations. Several visual, acoustic, haptic or vibrotactile perceptual cues can be generated when walking over a ground surface. Such sensory feedback can provide crucial and varied information regarding either the ground material itself, the properties of the ground surface such as slope or elasticity, the surrounding environment, the specificities of the foot-floor interaction such as gait phase or forces, or even users’ emotions. This chapter addresses the multimodal rendering of walking over virtual ground surfaces, incorporating haptic, acoustic and graphic rendering to enable truly multimodal walking experiences.