[Introduction to New Wisdom]The VR world of Apple Vision Pro alone is not exciting enough! Disney's high-tech floor Holotile has been tested for the first time on the Internet. It can walk in place 360 degrees, move objects with telekinesis, and control wirelessly. It simply subverts everyone's sensory world.
After Apple's Vision Pro was released, it was popular for a while and then almost died out.
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That’s because you can’t truly experience the immersive world in “Ready Player One” with just a headset.
I still remember that in January this year, Disney announced for the first time the “holographic floor” Holotile black technology, which allows unlimited walking on a single floor, attracting attention from the entire Internet.
Just recently, YouTube celebrity MKBHD has obtained the world's first Holotile evaluation qualification and started a wave of evaluations.
The ten-minute short review video has been viewed more than 3 million times online.
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With the Vision Pro on, the MKBHD never strays outside of its boundaries when strolling through the Holotile.
It can be called a 360-degree “treadmill”.
The effect of looking down is like this.
With this 360-degree walking floor, anyone can experience the incomparable sense of reality in the virtual world.
Holotile can even be remotely controlled wirelessly. By sitting on a chair with a smooth wooden bottom, you can achieve displacement without walking.
After reading it, netizens said, “Once Holotile is launched, 95% of people will become even more addicted to the Metaverse.”
The first review on the entire network
Designed by Disney's Imagineering Labs, Holotile uses a series of self-rotating disks.
Although this technology is complex, it looks extremely simple. This ingenious design is the unique magic of Disney.
On top of a stack of articulated cones, a disc is mounted and rotated by an internal motor to adapt to the speed at which people walk.
Crucially, these cones are designed to be tilted. Only the top of the disk, the surface in contact, rotates.
So as you walk forward, the disc rotates clockwise so that your foot lands back in the middle of the floor.
As you walk backwards, they rotate counterclockwise, moving your foot back to the center again.
So no matter which direction you're walking, or how fast you're walking, or how long your strides are, Holotile will pull you back to the center.
Not only can you walk on the Holotile, you can also control it with a game controller or move on it with external force (hands).
In the MKBHD review, he placed a box on the holographic floor. By moving your hand forward, backward, left, and right, the carton will also move in the same direction.
The ability to move through remote control has been seen at the beginning of the article.
During the walking test, MKBHD found some problems, such as the floor making a rustling sound when moving with footsteps, which was very noisy.
MKBHD put on Vision Pro and walked in a virtual environment similar to “Star Wars”, and even suffered from “motion sickness”.
At this stage, he felt that there was some kind of disharmony between his body and his brain.
He said there is a difference between what the eyes see and what the body and brain feel.
Obviously, it can be seen in the video that MKBHD himself is walking on the floor, swaying from side to side, and even a little unsteady.
Although it will take some time to get used to this feeling, he pointed out in the video that Holotile has the potential to develop into a product that can change the field of VR.
HoloTile magical floor created by Disney
The birth of HoloTile is the perfect combination of imagination and engineering.
It is the creative masterpiece of Lanny Smoot, a master of Disney's research and imagination engineering, and represents a new revolution in the fields of engineering and design.
This brand-new technology has been in the works for many years and was inspired by science fiction.
Smoot himself holds 100+ patents and was the inventor of the retractable lightsaber in the Star Wars series.
Smoot has said that his love of “Star Trek” inspired his development.
However, the idea of an all-around “treadmill” device is not new, and there are actually some on the market that are large, bulky, and designed for a single user.
The goal of HoloTile is to become a floor for multi-person experience.
Its sensors and software can detect and react to multiple people at the same time.
This allows people to share experiences in virtual reality.
Furthermore, HoloTile is designed with the danger of people colliding in mind, so the design allows it to cleverly redirect users on the move.
HoloTile is designed to do more than just let people walk on it, it can also move objects.
It allows everyone to move objects through the “Force”, which is very magical.
With this technology, players in the virtual world no longer have to worry about hitting a “real wall”.
In the future, Smoot said that the application of holographic floors is not limited to the field of VR, but can also play an ultimate role in stage performances.
References:
https://www.fastcompany.com/91019277/a-disney-imagineer-explains-how-they-made-the-holotile-floor-a-magical-walkway-that-moves-in-any-direction
https://www.designboom.com/technology/disney-holotile-floor-treadmill-vr-lanny-smoot-01-23-2024/
https://www.pcgamesn.com/games-hardware/disney-holotile