SubSmell: Multimedia with a simple olfactory display

Abstract

The idea of adding the SubSmell logo to the movie for describing the scent of each event in the movie has been proposed to improve the current way of seeing movies, which can perceive only pictures and sound. Using the SubSmell, the audience can smell the movie. The audiences need a SubSmell application to read a SubSmell and an olfactory display in order to release scent. There are two main parts in SubSmell system, which are an olfactory display and a SubSmell application. An olfactory display consists of a control box and four smell boxes with four fans. Fans will be turned on and release scents when receiving the signal from a SubSmell application. A SubSmell application is designed to read a SubSmell in the movie and decide to send signals to an olfactory display. A SubSmell application consists of four major components: 1) Movie Controlling, 2) SubSmell Reading, 3) Scent Releasing and 4) Olfactory Display Monitoring. We use Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to develop the user interface and the SubSmell components. The experiment was done in order to assess the following qualities: 1) Usability: to prove that the system can read a SubSmell in the movie and release scent. 2) Efficiency: to show that the system can work with high accuracy. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.