Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) has become an indispensable tool in industrial design reviews, enabling engineers and designers to evaluate virtual prototypes prior to physical fabrication. However, current VR systems rely heavily on visual and auditory feedback, often failing to communicate subtle material properties such as thermal conductivity and tactile surface characteristics. This study introduces an adaptive thermal pseudo-haptic framework designed to enhance material perception and object recognition during virtual industrial design evaluations. By dynamically coupling thermoelectric active cooling and heating modules with cross-modal visual pseudo-haptic cues—specifically modulating visual contact delay and local surface deformation—our system simulates realistic thermal effusivity and tactile interaction. We evaluated the proposed framework through a user study involving 32 professional industrial designers evaluating four target materials: aluminum, glass, high-density polyethylene, and oak wood. Results demonstrate that the integration of adaptive thermal cues with pseudo-haptic visual feedback significantly increased material identification accuracy to 91.8% compared to visual-only (62.5%) and static thermal (74.2%) conditions. Furthermore, participants reported higher immersion, confidence, and realism, alongside lower subjective mental workload. These findings demonstrate that cross-modal thermal pseudo-haptics can bridge the gap between digital models and physical prototypes, offering a high-fidelity paradigm for industrial design reviews.
