Many studies in Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) have explored the tactile experience of material textures for its potential in virtual reality and tangible interaction. We introduce TesselTex, an inflatable silicone-based structure, consisting of a tessellated matrix of textured "pixel''s made from two materials with differing roughness. By inflating embedded air chambers, skin contact between different materials on the tessellated surface can be adjusted, thereby modulating users' tactile perception of textures. We investigated how users perceived fine roughness and surface bumpiness under different pneumatically-controlled "pixel'' heights, with TesselTex samples of different "pixel'' densities and material compositions, in active (finger) and passive (forearm) stroking interactions. Results showed that pneumatic lifting of the material "pixels'' significantly decreased user-perceived roughness in composite samples, an effect not observed in conventional single-material bump arrays. Meanwhile, "pixel'' lifting significantly increased perceived surface bumpiness during active finger exploration, but had slight opposite effect under passive forearm stroking. In addition, higher "pixel'' density slightly increased the perceived roughness of the surface and modulated bumpiness perception, depending on the interaction mode.

Authors: Xingyu Yang, Qi Zhang, Qingqin Liu, Jiayi Wu, Tianrui Hu, and Kening Zhu (*).