Walt Disney Imagineering has divulged a new piece of technology called the ‘HoloTile’ floor for transverse through Virtual Reality (VR) spaces created by Disney Research Fellow and Imagineer Lanny Smoot.
Takeaway Points:
- Disney releases holotile floor for VR
- The HoloTile floor can be fused on a theatrical stage to help players navigate in omnidirectional
- Disney Research fellow and Imagineer Lanny Smoot masterminded this invention making him the first Imagineer in Disney company to be recognized.
The HoloTile Floor
Disney announced Sunday the omnidirectional tech, the HoloTile floor in a video celebrating Disney Research fellow and imagineer, Lanny Smooth who invented this tile. In the same video Smoot gives a demonstration of how the new tech works. The floor is made up of small circular pieces that shift and rotate as the user walks upon it, allowing omnidirectional VR experiences.
Disney said in a press release, HoloTile floor is “the world’s first multi-person, omnidirectional, modular, expandable, treadmill floor”.
The floor can accommodate multiple people independently and collaboratively as it automatically adjusts in order to keep the user on the floor.
Smoot in Hall of Fame
Smoot is the first Disney Imagineer to be recognized and the second person in the Disney company that will be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2024.
Smoot explains: “It will automatically do whatever it needs to have me stay on the floor. What’s amazing about this is multiple people can be on it and all walking independently. They can walk in virtual reality and so many other things.”
“It gives me an amazing opportunity to use these inventions that I have made in service of people having fun” He added.
HoloTile floor outside Disney
Smoot further suggests that the floor can be embedded into the theater stage as it would allow performers and dancers to create new amazing styles to their performances. He also added that “there are so many applications to this type of technology”.
This is the first time Disney is releasing a tool in the metaverse aside Apple’s Vision Pro, Oculus Quest 2 developed by Meta , Microsoft Hololens 2.
