WIP Back to School Webinars - Creating Your Own Haptic Effects

Creating custom haptic effects for
your Android application
Bob Heubel & Richard Mar presenting

September 2011
NASDAQ: IMMR

©2011 Immersion Corporation–Confidential
1

Agenda – We will answer these questions:
 Who is Immersion?
 What is haptics?
 How can Haptics be applied to Android apps?
 What is Immersion‟s MOTIV Platform for Android?
 How do you design custom Haptic effects using
MOTIV Studio?
 How do you code these custom effects into your
Android application?
 Where do you find additional MOTIV resources?
 What is the meaning of life? (time permitting)

2

Before we start, you should...

 As an experienced Android developer, you should
have these tools installed on your machine:

 Java SE
 Eclipse
 Android SDK
 Android Developer Tools

 And you should have an Android device connected

3

Additionally, you will need…
 Download latest Immersion MOTIV Studio and MOTIV
UHL to your PC from:
http://www.immersion.com/MOTIVsdk

 Download the latest MOTIV Bridge app from the Android
Market to connect your device to MOTIV Studio:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.immersion.designerbridge

4

Who is Immersion?

5

Company Highlights
Immersion: The Haptics Company
NASDAQ: IMMR

Technology Leader
Developing haptics solutions
Established in Large and since 1993

Rapidly Growing Markets
– Our tech is in 750+ million devices
– Mobile phones, game controllers, auto, World Class Customer Base
industrial, casino, other portable devices
Samsung, Nokia, LG, Sony, Microsoft,
Logitech, Lexus, BMW, CAE…

Worldwide Support
– Offices in EU, Korea, Taiwan,
Japan, US & Canada
Strong Intellectual Property
Portfolio of 1,200+ granted and pending
patents in the field of Haptics related
to both hardware and software

©2011 Immersion Corporation–Confidential 3

What is haptics?

7

The science of Haptics
Haptics is the science concerned with how people explore their
environment through their sense of touch (tactile feedback)

Feeling a
Feeling a Vs. Haptic
real bump simulation of
on a a bump on a
surface surface

Haptic interfaces simulate real-world forces
8

The science of Haptics
 Role of touch is often underestimated. We rely
extensively on touch to perform many tasks, like:
– Controlling the movement of objects including our own bodies
– Perceiving the world around us through the objects we interact
with

 Haptic interactions rely on mechanical signals like:
– Applied forces
– Applied torques
– Movement of objects
– Geometry and mass of objects
– Stiffness and texture of materials

 Haptic interfaces use actuators (motors) to create haptic
sensations that simulate real-world interactions

9

Common Haptic device examples
Force-feedback and rumble feedback gaming


The Benefits of Haptics
 Provides an enhanced user-experience that is more
engaging, intuitive and personal
 On touchscreen devices, Haptics assists in hand-eye
coordination--confirming task or data input completion
or acceptance by the UI elements
 More fun for gaming and entertainment apps
 Opens up a new communication channel that can be
used with or without audio or visual cues...
– Example, using vibe patterns to identify callers without
use of sound.
– Example, using vibe patterns to as navi-cues to
navigate while walking through the city, without the
need for looking at your handset GPS map.

11

More Examples of Applied Haptics

Virtual keypads & “Enzo’s Pinball” by “Solo” by Coding
keyboards that feel Haptify let’s you feel Caveman lets you feel
like mechanical the pinball collisions, each string of the guitar
buttons bumpers & flippers as you strum

12

Immersion‟s Haptic Technologies
for the Android Platform

13

Immersion‟s Haptic technologies
 Developer tools and resources (MOTIV SDK) that
include the MOTIV Studio effect design tool, the
only Haptic design tool with a simple visual GUI
 MOTIV Universal Haptic Layer (UHL) that
contains a library of 124 pre-made Haptic effects
 Software emulator included with MOTIV UHL that
allows for a consistent haptic playback experience
across all Android devices
 Embedded software player technology
(TouchSense) for OEMs to use that allows the
highest quality Haptic playback possible
14

What does the MOTIV Studio do for you?
 Allows you to design custom Haptic effects beyond
the pre-made 124 effects found in the MOTIV UHL
 Allows you to create complex Timelines with multiple
vibe components
 Allows you to playback/test/iterate your effects on your
tethered Android device without needing to compile code
 Allows you to reference sounds files displayed as
waveforms for playback with your newly designed effects,
again, without having to compile your app code
 Allows you to export your custom effects in many
different developer formats, including Java

15

What does the MOTIV SDK do for you?
 Saves you time developing effects that feel good
across all Android devices and platforms, not just a
single device or platform version (1.6 or higher)
 Allows you to have more than simple motor on/off
vibration control, like ramps, staccato repeats and
complicated patterns
 Consistent vibe effects across ALL Android devices.
 Devices with TouchSense embedded player technology
will feel the best (1/4 billion devices to date) but the
MOTIV UHL emulator creates compatibility support on
all other Android devices. Code once!


Example – Benefits of MOTIV SDK
 Using standard Google vibrate () you must define
motor “on” durations for each device type
– Not useful, not effective for gaming
– Very time consuming to code
– Your effect may feel fine on one Android device but horrible
on another, due to differences in vibe motors
 Using MOTIV, we abstract this level for you
– You choose an effect from a library, or design your own
– The effect will automatically feel consistent across all
devices whether it is an explosion, click, or bounce
– The MOTIV Studio & MOTIV UHL combine to give you the
only complete Haptic solution for the Android platform


Adding MOTIV Haptics to an Android application

SDK and Studio available at: www.immersion.com/MOTIVsdk

MOTIV Bridge: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.immersion.designerbridge

Use MOTIV Studio in tandem with UHL
You should always use your custom created Haptic
effects from MOTIV Studio WITH the MOTIV UHL

 If you do not, your custom effects will only playback
on Android devices using the Immersion TouchSense
player (about half the Android devices)
 The MOTIV UHL contains the playback emulator
needed to play your custom effects across ALL
Android devices, not just those with TouchSense.


Using Immersion
MOTIV Studio

20

Let‟s start with an application in mind
 We will design three
custom effects
 We will reference sound
files in our design
 We will create both simple
basis effects and a more
Airplane crash complicated timeline effect
animation  We will export our effects
as Java
 We will add these effects to
our sample application
21

Download resources…
 If you have not already, download latest Immersion
MOTIV Studio and MOTIV UHL to your PC from:

 Download the latest MOTIV Bridge app from the Android
Market to connect your device to MOTIV Studio:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.immersion.designerbridge

23

Connecting your device to
MOTIV Studio
 Install MOTIV Studio on your PC and make sure you
have the MOTIV Bridge app loaded on your target
Android device
 Make sure you have your Android device driver installed
 Turn on your device and enable the USB debugging
mode under your device “Application settings” menu
 Plug your device into your PC and use “adb devices”
command in your DOS prompt to verify that your device
is being recognized by your PC. Once it is, you can
launch the MOTIV Studio and your device should be
recognized in the Studio device list

24

MOTIV Studio
Effect Design

25

Exported Java from MOTIV Studio

These are the three
effects we will call from
our sample application

26

Code Demo:

Integrating MOTIV Studio custom
effects into the Airplane Crash sample
Android application

27

You should...
 As an experienced Android developer, you should
have practical experience with Eclipse and:

 Android architecture
 The life cycle of components
 Event handling
 Debugging and application
 Deploying an application to a device

28

Add UHL to Eclipse project
• Extract UHL_x_x_xx.zip somewhere
• Copy extracted libImmEmulatorJ.so file to your Eclipse
project libs/armeabi folder (create folders if necessary)
• In Eclipse, refresh project to see
libs/armeabi/libImmEmulatorJ.so
• Navigate to Project > Properties > Build Path >
Configure Build Path…
• Click on Add External JARs…
• Browse to location of extracted UHL.jar file

For additional information, visit the Immersion website:
http://www2.immersion.com/developers/index.php?option=com_
content&view=article&id=495&Itemid=812
29

Create a Device Object
 This is a logical representation of the vibe capability of your
device. The Device object needs the context of the app as an
argument

Device = Device.newDevice(context);

Create IVTBuffer Object
• The IVTBuffer object stores all the IVT data from the effect
definition class into a temporary buffer. You must pass the byte
array of the java class you exported from MOTIV Studio as an
argument to the IVTBuffer constructor.

IVTBuffer ivt = new IVTBuffer(myeffects.ivt);

30

Play Effect
 Play a haptic effect from the IVT

device.playIVTEffect(ivt, myeffects.Periodic);

Once the Device and IVTBuffer objects are created and
initialized, you can play the actual effect by using the
playIVTEffect() method.
Since one IVTBuffer may contain many effects, an effect
index is used to identify the one you wish to play.
In the exported Java code, the effect indices are stored
as constants. You determine the names of the effects by
looking at the Java code.

Stop Effect
• Stop the haptic effect from the IVT.

device.stopAllPlayingEffects();

Close the Device Object
device.close();

The Device must be closed after it has been used to play
and stop the haptic effects. This ensures that there are no
resource leaks in the application. 32

In a nutshell, that‟s it!
If you can handle the setting up your Eclipse
environment and understand the last five slides…

Then you should be able to add your cool custom
MOTIV Studio effects to your applications.

But let‟s review the steps within the Eclipse environment
itself through the simple Airplane Crash demo application
just to make sure you understand.

33

Airplane Crash
Demo App Example
(within Eclipse)

34

Agenda – We will answer these questions:

 Who is Immersion?
 What is haptics?
 How can Haptics be applied to Android apps?
 What is Immersion‟s MOTIV Platform for Android?
 How do you design custom Haptic effects using
MOTIV Studio?
 How do you code these custom effects into your
Android application?
 Where do you find additional MOTIV resources?

35

Additional Resources
Developer guide
http://www.immersion.com/MOTIVguide

Reference doc
http://www.immersion.com/MOTIVref

Sample code
http://www.immersion.com/MOTIVcode

Forum
http://www.immersion.com/MOTIVforum

MOTIV Studio (Only for advanced custom effect design)

Immersion‟s Got Apps Campaign

 Immersion Building a Wall of Haptic Apps for Mobile World
Congress (MWC „12) in Barcelona, Spain.
– Show us your apps using the Immersion MOTIV UHL SDK and
add “Integrated with Immersion MOTIV Haptic Effects” to
your description page
– Launch in Android Market or any other Android app store
– If your app is compelling, we‟ll help you promote it and demo
it at Mobile World Congress – Feb 2012 and other tradeshows
– AND drive connection to our OEM / Carrier partners
 Contact us at MOTIVdev@immersion.com to participate 37

Immersion to Promo Your Cool Haptic Apps
 Inclusion in Immersion‟s outreach to over 30 major
technology & review channels including:
– Engadget, PC World, AndroidPolice, Appolicious, VentureBeat/GameBeat,
Android Central, etc…
 Highlight of your app in Immersion‟s Feature App section
of their Developer‟s site (developer.immersion.com)
 Inclusion in Immersion‟s publicly issued press releases
 Potential inclusion on Immersion promotional
videos/animations
 Demos to Immersion‟s major OEM partners for bundling
opportunties
 Inclusion in Immersion demonstrations at upcoming
tradeshows and conferences like AnDevCon, MWC, etc.

Thank you!
Bob Heubel & Richard Mar presenting

September 2011
NASDAQ: IMMR

39

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