Disney Demos 'HoloTile Floor' with Possible Applications in Shared Virtual Reality

In the last 90 seconds of a recent Disney Parks video, there's a demonstration of a new technology called a HoloTile floor. Disney research fellow/R&D 'imagineerer' Lanny Smoot specifies that 'we don't know yet where it will be used' — though noting multiple people could walk in place during a shared virtual reality experience. It's an 'omnidirectional floor' which can 'automatically do whatever it needs to' so those walkers stay in the same place. 'Imagine a number of people being in a room, being able to be somewhere else collaboratively and moving around, doing sightseeing.'

Video also shows objects gliding smoothly along its surface, with its direction apparently controlled remotely by hand motions ('like telekinesis,' as one design blog describes it). Smooth says in the video 'There are just so many applications for this type of technology.'

But IGN believes that it 'just may be a game changer for VR and could bring us ever closer to experiencing the Holodeck from Star Trek.'

For those Star Trek fans out there, this sounds a lot like the promise of the Holodeck, a smallish-room that could virtually take our favorite crews wherever they wanted for some fun and relaxation between missions when it wasn't malfunctioning and trying to murder them... The applications of the HoloTile floor also extend beyond virtual reality, as Disney notes 'The HoloTile floor can also be an insert in a theatrical stage, allowing performers to move and dance in new ways, or stage props and structures to move around or appear to set themselves up.'

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