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Haptic technology, or haptics, is a tactile feedback technology that takes advantage of our sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, and/or motions to the user through a device. Haptic enabled devices have recently gained much publicity in the computer games industry due to their ability to provide a more immersive experience. The use of haptic in the context of GIS and navigation assistance has not previously been considered. We present an overview of Haptic technologies and provide a commentary on how GIS and haptics may crossover and integrate. To demonstrate the potential of haptics for navigation assistance a simple case-study of using haptic feedback as a navigational assistant in pedestrian route planning software is presented. This case-study uses the OpenStreetMap(OSM) database and Cloudmade routing API.
Jacob et al. (Mon,) studied this question.