Who wouldn’t want to experience a walk through the virtual world? An important part of experiencing virtual reality would be an easy multi-directional movement. Normal treadmills let us walk in a single direction with variations in speed but how about one that allows us to move in any direction we would like to. Although the idea and implementation of omni-directional treadmills are not new but CyberCarpet from CyberWalk allows near natural walking experience.This might prove beneficial in the usage of virtual reality in varied fields like training, therapy, architecture etc.

CyberCarpet is a platform with a large chain drive composed of 25 conventional treadmills which move in a direction that is at right angles to the direction of the pull of the chain. The belts and the chain work independent of one another so that the recentering of the walking individual is made possible on the platform if he were to move towards the edge. Without further description it’s better to look at the demonstration in the following video.

[source: gajitz.com]