Hi, NB: "If anybody knows about the phantom device, and if it is sold in the UK, that would also be very helpful." WP: I'm using a Phantom as part of my PhD on haptic collaborative virtual environments. They are sold in the UK but from what I've been told by my PhD superviser they are quite expensive; he said that when he purchased the two Phantoms that we have a couple of years ago the Phantom Desktop cost £15000 and the Phantom Premium cost £50000. Added to that you willl need some software to display the images. Sensable, who produce the Phantom, have recently produced a piece of software that can take either a VRML or X3D file and turn it into a 3D model. I don't know whether this is free software included with the purchase of a Phantom or whether it is an additional cost. If you wanted to go beyond the features of the software provided by Sensable then you will have to develop the software yourself or get someone to do it for you, and if you then wanted to use this software outside of academia you would then need to buy commercial licences for the Open haptics Toolkit, which is the programming API that Sensable produce for the Phantom. WP: In addition to Sensable's Phantom there is also the Omega that is produced by Force Dimension, a Swiss company. When I spoke to Force Dimension and took a look at their Omega-X and it's 7 DOF end effector at EuroHaptics last year I was quite impressed. WP: I can see ways in which the Phantom, or similar haptic device, could meet your needs but I think it will take some custom development work to create the software to do it. Will