Unity-Vertex-Displacements
An example showing how to distort objects while preserving touch
Purpose
This project contains a shader and a script to dynamically distort a scene's arrangement using vertex displacement. Unlike the distortion of meshes themselves, this technique preserves the general arrangement of the scene: Objects that are touching remain touching after distortion, and objects that are not touching still don't touch. In the image, the highlighted invisible game object marks the center of a visual lens, which can be moved in the scene and changed in size and strength.
Applications
One application is the distortion of virtual bodies in virtual body illusions using virtual reality. Here, visuo-tactile congruency during touch is disrupted when the body's mesh is distorted, but preserved when a similar distortion is applied using vertex displacement.
Further Reading
The technique is described in more detail in this article: Rubo, M., & Gamer, M. (2018). Using Vertex Displacements to Distort Virtual Bodies and Objects While Preserving Visuo-Tactile Congruency During Touch. In 2018 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (Vr) (pp. 673-674). IEEE.
It was futhermore used in this study: Rubo, M., & Gamer, M. (2019). Visuo-tactile congruency influences the body schema during full body ownership illusion. Consciousness and cognition, 73, 102758.

