Smell-o-vision is here

Based at the School of Engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Professor Nakamoto is building a range of gadgets and sensors which sniff, mix and pump out a range of hundreds of scents.

One of the most ambitious devices his team has built is a sophisticated "odour recorder" which can sniff an object and then reproduce its smell using a host of chemicals.

If you present the recorder with a shiny red apple, the electronic nose will take a cursory sniff, analyse the odour and then draw up a recipe of chemicals needed to recreate it.

The odour recorder uses a neural network to learn fragrance recipes
When you want to replay the scent, the device mixes the ingredients and pumps the smell of apples back at you.

"Our intention is to make all smells reproducible," Professor Nakamoto said. "So, in this case we have combined two techniques: smell detection and smell generation". . .

But synthesising billions of different smells is still problematic, the professor admits. There is not a small number of "primary" odours from which all others can be created.

And another project which sounds amusing:

Although not virtual reality, his team has recently exhibited a computer game that generates scents to match the onscreen action.

It is a relatively simple cooking game, where users wearing a mask add virtual ingredients to an onscreen frying pan to rustle up a Japanese curry.

As you add the butter and onions, realistic scents are pumped through the mask. In turn, garlic, meat and spice aromas complete the overall dish.

From the BBC.

Posted by David on October 13, 2006 10:34 AM