An object appears to be moving completely on its own. But it's not telekinesis or some kind of magic that propels him across the room, it's Disney's new HoloTile floor.
Disney demonstrated the new technologywhich features small rotating plates that work together to move a person or object, at its D23 fan event last week and viewers were impressed.
Anyone could walk on the HoloTile floor in any direction and the floor would automatically move to hold them within the tiles, opening up use cases in areas like virtual reality.
The HoloTile floor might be the one I'm most excited about from Disney Imagineering. It's bringing us closer to the dream of a Star Trek Holodeck and helping to create virtual worlds we can run around in, despite being in a small room. Oh, and make our dreams of using the Force come true! #D23 pic.twitter.com/eJSYO8FTGW
— Adam Bankhurst @ D23 (@AdamBankhurst) August 10, 2024
The HoloTile floor can also “support any number of people who are on the same floor … and be able to be in virtual reality,” said Lanny Smoot, a Disney Research associate. at the event. “What we have then is a kind of holodeck, if you will, a place where people can walk to imaginary places, walk to help us create new attractions, and also move anything on its surface.”
Smoot was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in January and glanced furtively on the HoloTile floor, at that time. Disney doesn't yet know where the floor will be used, but there are “only so many applications” for it, including putting it on theater stages, Smoot had said.
Technical Reviewer Marques Brownlee became the first person outside of Disney to walk the HoloTile floor in April, and he said he envisions a future version with smaller and more numerous tiles.
Disney's D23 event also featured other demosincluding one that goes deeper into reverse engineering his BD-X droids.