The future of entertainment is going to be an immersive experience in which virtually everything the viewer or gamer interacts with on the screen becomes part of the environment. Current technology allows people to use gestures to perform actions with depth cameras and motion tracking devices, but this is nothing compared to what researchers have in mind in the future. That future is almost here, as there is now one more sense that can be stimulated through interacting with a multimedia device. Disney Research, Pittsburgh, has developed the AIREAL, a highly scalable haptic technology that delivers expressive tactile sensations in midair.

This technology allows users to receive feedback on full body gestures, feel virtual objects, and experience different types of textures without having to wear anything. AIREAL creates a vortex of a ring of air that can travel a considerable distance keeping the shape and speed. When this vortex hits a person it collapses delivering a force that can be perceived by the user.

The air vortex is delivered by five actuators that are mounted in the enclosure of the unit which displaces air from the enclosed volume with a flexible nozzle. The nozzle which is controlled by the actuators is able to deliver a vortex with precision in 3D space.

The rings of air can be adjusted so they can deliver different levels of intensity to create a number of tactile effects as well as objects with textured surfaces, and force feedback for gestures.

The researchers are able to control the vortices to a distance of 1.5 meters, and it could be felt at more than twice that distance. Because the devices are cheap they will be able to implement multiple AIREAL units per installation to create multiple effects. The next step for the researchers is being able to control when and where the vortex stops moving, because as it stands right now it only travels along a straight path.

"What makes this particularly exciting is that we can create these effects literally out of free air, without the need for people to wear special gloves or vests, hold haptic devices or sit in instrumented chairs. The technology for creating these effects is scalable and relatively inexpensive, so we can envision using AIREAL to create magical experiences both for large groups of people and for an individual in her living room," said Ivan Poupyrev, senior research scientist at Disney Research, Pittsburgh.

The AIREAL uses another new technology for many of its components. The device is created with a 3-D printer for the enclosure, flexible nozzle and a pan and tilt gimbal structure capable of 75-degree targeting field.

This technology will be presented at ACM SIGGRAPH 2013, the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Anaheim, California by senior researcher Ivan Poupyrev and his colleagues Rajinder Sodhi, Matthew Glisson and Ali Israr from Disney (News - Alert) Research, Pittsburgh.

"One of our long-term visions is to create complete 3D shapes in the air. Imagine holding out your hand and feeling someone's face. This will start truly eroding the boundary between real and virtual," said Rajinder Sodhi lead researcher for the AIREAL project.