Smelling in VR Environment Possible With New Gaming Technology

hubie writes:

Smelling in VR environment possible with new gaming technology:

In the past, computer games have focused mostly on what we can see - moving images on screens. Other senses have not been present. But an interdisciplinary research group at Stockholm University and Malmo University has now constructed a scent machine that can be controlled by a gaming computer. In the game, the participant moves in a virtual wine cellar, picking up virtual wine glasses containing different types of wine, guessing the aromas. The small scent machine is attached to the VR system's controller, and when the player lifts the glass, it releases a scent.

"The possibility to move on from a passive to a more active sense of smell in the game world paves the way for the development of completely new smell-based game mechanics based on the players' movements and judgments," says Simon Niedenthal, interaction and game researcher at Malmo University.

The olfactometer consists of four different valves each connected to a channel. In the middle there is a fan sucking the air into a tube. With the help of the computer, the player can control the four channels so that they open to different degrees and provide different mixtures of scent. Scent blends that can mimic the complexity of a real wine glass. The game has different levels of difficulty with increasing levels of complexity.

[...] All code, blueprints and instructions for the machine are openly available online, as is code for the virtual wine tasting game. The research group, Sensory Cognitive Interaction Laboratory, which is located at the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, now hopes that scented computer games can become useful for other purposes.

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