AromaCanvas: A wearable olfactory display for Chinese painting appreciation and learning in virtual reality

In this paper, we present AromaCanvas, a wearable olfactory display designed to enhance immersive appreciation and exploration of Chinese paintings in virtual reality (VR). AromaCanvas integrates two piezoelectric-based transducers into a vest, enabling scent delivery around the user's shoulders with controllable intensities activated through finger gesture interactions. Users can engage with Chinese paintings by pointing at different elements, such as woods or flowers, to trigger corresponding scents at varying intensities, creating a highly immersive and engaging VR art experience. We conducted two user-perception experiments to investigate how users perceive scents in virtual environments using our olfactory system. The first experiment explored human perception under different actuation factors, including the actuator distances, actuated intensities, and scent types, using piezoelectric-based transducers. Results revealed that perceived scent intensity varied across these factors, allowing us to optimize AromaCanvas for the most energy-efficient design. The second experiment evaluated the VR experience and demonstrated that AromaCanvas significantly enhanced users' sense of presence, usability, and overall experience of appreciating and learning about Chinese paintings in VR, outperforming the conventional VR system.