Disney Imagineering research fellow Lanny Smoot was recently inducted into the Engineering Hall of Fame, and he celebrated by announcing his most recent invention: the HoloTile Floor.
On Jan. 18, Disney released a video of the invention on YouTube, getting over 500,000 views. Since then, people have been reposting clips from the video on X.
One tech development account called Smoot’s new invention “the future of AR/VR and the Multiverse.”
In Smoot’s 20-year career with Bell Laboratories at Disney, he’s designed electromagnetic eyes for animatronics, the interactive zoetrope and the most realistic extendable lightsaber, and he’s been granted more than 100 other patents.
The only other inventor from Disney to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame was Walt Disney himself.
In the video, Smoot demonstrated how to use the HoloTile Floor.
“I can walk on this omnidirectional floor in any direction I want,” he said. “It will automatically do whatever it needs to to have me stay on the floor.”
The video switched to show two other people walking (in place) in different directions. “What’s amazing about this is multiple people can be on it and all walking independently. They can walk in multiple reality and so many other things,” Smoot said.
In Disney’s YouTube video, Smoot described alternate uses for the invention aside from virtual reality. “Imagine theatrical stages that might have these embedded in them so that dancers can do amazing moves,” he said. The video cut to Smoot sitting in a chair moving on its own on the HoloTile Floor.
“There’s so many applications for this technology and we don’t know where it’ll be used,” Smoot said.