A Proposal of the Olfactory Information Presentation Method and Its Application for Scent Generator Using Web Service

Among the human senses, olfactory information still does not have a proper data presentation method unlike that regarding vision and auditory information. It makes presenting the sense of smell into multimedia information impossible, which may be an exploratory field in human computer interaction. In this paper, we propose an olfactory information presentation method, which is a way to use smell as multimedia information, and show an application for scent generation and odor display using a web service. The olfactory information can present smell characteristics such as intensity, persistence, hedonic tone, and odor description. The structure of data format based on olfactory information can also be organized according to data types such as integer, float, char, string, and bitmap. Furthermore, it can be used for data transmitting via a web service and for odor display using a scent generator. The scent generator, which can display information of smell, is developed to generate 6 odors using 6 aroma solutions and a diluted solution with 14 micro-valves and a micropump. Throughout the experiment, we confirm that the remote user can grasp information of smell transmitted by messenger service and request odor display to the computer controlled scent generator. It contributes to enlarge existing virtual reality and to be proposed as a standard reference method regarding olfactory information presentation for future multimedia technology.