A Timestamp-Independent Haptic–Visual Synchronization Method for Haptic-Based Interaction System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper proposes a timestamp-independent synchronization method for haptic-visual signal transmission by combining the key samples and frames to synchronize the corresponding haptic-visual signals. Experimental results show the effectiveness and correctness of the proposed method. There are some problems of theoretical and experimental analyses in this manuscript and it can be revised in the following aspects.

1. In keywords, “haptics” is repeated and can be removed.

2. All mathematical expressions should be meticulously examined to avert some potential mistakes. For example, in Eq.1, why don’t some summation terms have a coefficient? In Eq. 2, what is x? The value of lr may be greater than 1. How to explain it? In Eq. 4, can it be rewritten as |T_v-T_h|<D? Can one bound, D, replace two bounds, D_alpha and D_beta? In Eq. 6, it is needed to supplement the definition of MaxAE. Because x denotes coordinate in the context, it is necessary to substitute x with another variable.

3. In subsection 4.5, it is better to utilize a program diagram or flowchart to describe the proposed method.

4. In experimental section, if it is possible, the comparison with the state-of-the-art approaches is expected.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall, the research published in the paper is interesting. On the other hand, the paper is rather badly conceptualized, it looks chaotic to me. In the results you describe the methods, very often it is mentioned that we chose so and so, but you didn't put there the justification that why. Overall, I have to assess that if the paper is to be published, it needs to be reworked in my opinion.

The title of the article needs to be changed, it is very general.

You say subjective evaluation in the abstract, but you had a test sample of 21 participants. Please review this, although I understand that you were assessing subjective impressions.

The paper is set up disorganized, I would recommend replacing the chapters in some way, related work would be a better fit for the introduction section, 22 lines.

The introduction is very simplified, this needs to be clearly expanded. The authors mention that there is no synchronisation method. I might argue, it needs to be justified. As I say, the introduction and the literature review are on a weaker level. I recommend expanding this area to include a literature review and exploration of similar methods, etc.

Also, the purpose of the work is mentioned in the introduction, which is not recommended. Line 47

The second chapter is capitalized, which is incorrect.

In chapter 3 you begin to describe your methods. The error is that you clearly define the aim of the work, the sub-objectives and then proceed with the methods. As I say again, the paper is rather disorganized.

Line 186, on the basis of what factors did you decide to use the YOLO network?

You have two methods used in your work, your method of sychronization and then the method of evaluation used by your method.

As I mentioned, you need to redo the complete organization of your paper (Introduction and related work, objectives, methods, results, discussion, conclusion)

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper presents a sync method to align haptic and visual signals with certain time delays. Some validation experiments/results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method but some improvements/revisions are essential to make it more convincing and technically sound.

 

1.  For the 2AFC experiment, a better analysis method - psychometric calculation/fitting - should be considered, instead of just having a plot like Figure 6. This seems not quantitative for psychophysical study.

 

2. A better justification is needed for selecting the force threshold as 0.05. Any reference or experimental results should be presented to show the rationale since it's crucial to pick out the initial perceivable haptic signal. This requires more sufficient evidence, not just empirical.

 

3. When reporting results/evaluations from all participants, more detailed information is needed - years of age of all participants, their perception capability of both tactile and visual stimulus, and in each plot, error bars are needed to show the variability of the aggregated results.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Overall the paper is very well written and presents all the steps the researchers performed in their goal to develop a timestamp-independent synchronization for haptic-visual signal transmission.

There is a small problem with the English:

- Figure 10. The subjuctive improvements with our method

- Combing the correlation 61 and key samples/frames ....

Also, in my opinion is best to replace testee with user or subject.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you very much for your answers. You have included the above comments in a new contribution, thank you. I do not have any new remarks or comments. 

Reviewer 3 Report

I appreciate the authors' consideration and efforts in revising this manuscript. I understand the authors have presented their best rationale for the force threshold and the analysis of the psychophysical experiment, however, there's still room for improvements in future work.