Marques Brownlee Walks on an Amazing 360° HoloTile Infinite Treadmill Floor by Disney Imagineering

While visiting the Walt Disney Imagineering Lab, vlogger Marques Brownlee tried out an amazing 360° floor made out of HoloTile, a series of connected rotating discs that move an object or person along like an omnidirectional, infinite treadmill. This incredible floor was invented by award-winning Imagineer Lanny Smoot.

Now, I don’t know that anyone’s actually fully explained exactly how this thing works yet, but you can see that they’re basically walking across a huge number of these tiny, one inch discs that are spinning on top of their bases like a bunch of tiny treadmills and then turning to match the direction that you’re walking. …built into the floor is a bunch of articulating cones with discs on top of them, with motors inside to spin those discs.

Brownlee started off in a chair before actually walking on the Holotile. Once he got the hang of that, he tried it out with an Apple Vision Pro strapped to his head. He found this to be far more difficult as his brain was not in communication with his body.

I got to try putting on an Apple Vision Pro and actually walking around a 3D constructed environment. You can’t see it, but I’m in like a holo deck in Star Trek or something, and I’ve got a harness on because it turns out this is really hard. My eyes see the movement, and my legs are trying to walk forward, and my feet are sliding around, but my brain thinks I’m not supposed to be moving forward. So, it’s confusing.