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Tactile
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tactile refers to the sense of touch. A body-based touch event occurs when a finger makes contact with an object and the term touch is generally used to describe the initial event.
However, there are many other sensations that can occur after the initial event such as increase of normal force, shear stress, vibrations, etc. Consequently, it is more appropriate to talk about tactile sensations, not touch sensations, during the manipulation or probing of an object.
The scroll wheel used in the popular iPod uses a touch sensor and many laptops computers use a touchpad. The touch sensor and touchpad do not differentiate differences in the level of pressure exerted or area of pressure exerted.
The Tissot T-Touch is a multi-functional tactile watch. The touch on the face causes function activation on the digital display.
The Thermo (temperature), Meteo(barometer), Altimeter(Ambient pressure based height above sea level), Chrono(stop watch), Compass(Minute hand pointing north) and Alarm are displayed on the touching the screen around the corners.
A tactile sensor may differentiate between types of touch including hardness of the touching object, magnitude of the contact force, area and shape of the contact area, and the presence of shear forces.