An Incredible Omnidirectional Treadmill Designed for Virtual Reality Like the One in ‘Ready Player One’

Engineer Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day made his way out to Rocklin, California to speak with the creators of the Infinadeck Omnidirectional Treadmill, a VR treadmill similar to the one used in the film Ready Player One. After a brief discussion about the engineering involved (“a treadmill made of treadmills”), Sandlin jumped aboard to test it out. At the time of filming, Sandlin noted that there were a few issues that needed overcoming, but was really impressed with the Infinadeck nonetheless.

In engineering we have these assignments called technology readiness levels. There’s nine of them and I would say this is somewhere between a six and a seven, which means there’s a working prototype that works and they’re just refining the subsystems. They’re about to go to production so it’s really cool to be able to walk on this Infinideck before it goes out into mainstream production and see the behind the scenes engineering things they’re having to solve.

Sandlin also provided fascinating behind-the-scenes footage from that day.