Exploration of Olfactory Input Interface Based on Smell Capture

In HCI community,olfactory interface research has been increasingly attracting researchers’interest in recent years,and they usually focus on using odor delivery technology to present symbolic messages,multisensory rendering and so on.Whereas,research about olfactory input methods is comparatively under-explored.Electronic nose is currently regarded as an ideal means of odor input.It can identify odors and digitize them,but the ability is still very limited,and the generated data cannot transmit and present odors like pictures and audio.There is a demand to collect olfactory information in both physical and digital dimensions,that is,not only constructing the digital label through sensing technologies,but also collecting the odorants for odor replay.Therefore a few design principles were proposed and prototypes were developed in two ways to explore solutions to this issue.A series of potential application scenarios were concluded based on literature surveys,interviews and brainstorming.The research routes were also discussed to provide suggestions and directions for subsequent related research.