An Olfactory Display System Integrated with Video Content Recognition

Olfactory display is a system presenting scents to users. Most systems, incorporating with visual and audio displays, can provide realistic and immersive feelings for the multimedia experience. However, the odors were predefined according to the certain images in the past studies, which is not convenient to users. In this paper, an olfactory display system employing image processing technology is presented. The idea is to present corresponding scents once the video contents are recognized, which has not been proposed in previous studies. We developed the olfactory display device using micro-hole piezoelectric ceramic wafers and 3D printing technology. Five kinds of fruits were filmed as video contents and recognized according to their shape and color features. For the desktop application of our designed system, a proper perception distance of 50 cm was suggested. Based on this distance, we confirmed that the olfactory display had a good repeatability and could control the concentration of odors. Both the gas sensor test and the human sensory evaluation validated the feasibility of the proposed olfactory display system.