Patent ID: 8179368

Claim:
A manual operation device in connection to a display unit comprising: an operation unit for generating an operation signal when movement of the operation unit is caused by a manual operation; an actuator for applying a driving force to the operation unit; a position detector for detecting an operation position of the operation unit; a storage unit for storing a force pattern that simultaneously defines a first relationship between the position of the operation unit and a regulation control value for regulating the driving force of the actuator and a second relationship between the position of the operation unit and a control signal to control an external device; and a control unit for simultaneously outputting the regulation control value to the actuator and the control signal to the external device based on the force pattern stored in the storage unit and the position of the operation unit detected by the position detector, wherein the control unit outputs a three-dimensional graph for representing on the display unit the first relationship between the position of the operation unit and the regulation control value in the force pattern stored in the storage unit, the control unit modifies the first relationship between the position of the operation unit and the regulation control value in the force pattern stored in the storage unit based on one of modification information from an external source and modification information by an operation of the operation unit, the force pattern to be modified is represented by a two-dimensional line graph in a cross-sectional view of the three-dimensional graph cut along an arbitrary line that is drawn by a user in a setting screen, and the operation unit interacts with the user to modify the force pattern by changing a shape of the cross-sectional view through the operation of the operation unit.