Disney Research

Disney’s Sand-Sketching Robot Turns Beaches Into an Artist’s Canvas

If you thought elaborate sand castles were the only way one could express their artistic vision on the beach, Disney Research and ETH Zürich want to introduce you to their Beachbot. Slightly larger than a Roomba, the cartoonish robot turtle uses innovative soft balloon-like wheels so that it doesn’t leave a trail while rolling across…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Jan 12

Disney’s Super-Realistic CG Eyeballs Are an Uncanny Valley Airlift

What most often gives away a CG character as fake is their dead, lifeless eyes. It’s a common contributing factor to the uncanny valley effect, but now researchers at Disney have developed asystem to perfectly capture a performer’s eyes that promises to make CG characters finally appear more lifelike and convincing. Motion capture systems are…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Dec 5

Disney Has Developed An Algorithm That Can Turn Any Object Into A Top

Researchers with Disney Research Zurich have developed a method for turning any three-dimensional object into an optimized (i.e. ideally weighted) object that can spin uniformly about a vertically oriented axis. It’s very, very cool to see in action, as the following video clearly shows. https://observationdeck.kinja.com/disney-researchers-create-impossible-spinning-tops-1618693732

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Aug 23

Disney Developed Software To Revolutionize Macy’s Parade Balloons

The reason your favorite cartoon or movie character hasn’t appeared in Macy’s annual Thanksgiving Day Parade isn’t necessarily because they’re not popular, it might be that crafting an inflatable likeness has just been too difficult. But to ensure no fad gets left out, the folks at Disney Research have developed special software making it easy…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Aug 11

Disney Research 3D-Prints Figurines With the Most Lifelike Hair Ever

3D printing can make an action figure copy of your body and face, but the hair usually ends up looking like a Lego minifig wig. The mad scientists at Disney Research just solved that, with an algorithm so powerful it can trace your hair’s shape and color with ultra-realism. The research team at Disney Research…

Tech News Bob Sorokanich Aug 9

Data Hidden Inside of Music Could Soon Stream Right to Your Smartphone

Your religious neighbor may have been wrong about the satanic messages hidden in your new-fangled rock music, but researchers at Disney have figured out a very real way to hide data within songs. In a new study, they explain how the next concert or movie you go to could broadcast content to your phone through…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Apr 30

Disney’s Paper Generators Could Power Interactive Books of the Future

Disney has developed a new technology that allows you to generate energy by simply rubbing or touching a piece of paper. This is something the world needs because, you know, everything will require a level of interactivity in the future—even old-fashioned paper books. Disney’s paper generators make use of electrets, which are materials that hold…

Tech News Mario Aguilar Oct 7

Incredible Disney Microphone Transmit Sounds Through Your Fingertips

When it comes to secrets, whispering just got outdated. Disney Research has come up with a microphone, straight out of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, that doesn’t actually amplify your ramblings, but instead turns them into a secret signal you can transmit by touch. The Ishin-Den-Shin installation—named for a Japanese term that means something along…

Tech News Eric Limer Sep 9

Air-Powered Force Feedback Could Make Kinect Even More Immersive

Microsoft’s Kinect provided gamers with a hands-free way to play their favorite titles. But when the controller was removed from the situation, so was the haptic force feedback that can enhance gameplay. Most of us were ok with the tradeoff, but not the Imagineers at Disney Research who’ve come up with a way to provide…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski May 23

3D-Printed Optics Could Light Up the Gadgets of the Future

3D-printing is awesome, but it has its limits. For the time being, we mostly get static plastic figures, and while resolution is getting better all the time, we’re far from a real replicator future. A new development is bringing us one step closer, however: printable optics. A paper recently published by Disney Research—the folks who…

Tech News Eric Limer Oct 6

Come the robot uprising, Paraswift will climb the walls, attack from the sky

Its inventors say it could be used to create 3D models of urban environments for applications like Google Street View, but take one look at Paraswift — the vertical-wall-climbing, base-jumping robot featured in the video above — and you’ll know it to be true: come the robot uprising, we humans are totally humped. Paraswift is…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Sep 8

Disney’s Sand-Sketching Robot Turns Beaches Into an Artist’s Canvas

Disney’s Super-Realistic CG Eyeballs Are an Uncanny Valley Airlift

Disney Has Developed An Algorithm That Can Turn Any Object Into A Top

Disney Developed Software To Revolutionize Macy’s Parade Balloons

Disney Research 3D-Prints Figurines With the Most Lifelike Hair Ever

Data Hidden Inside of Music Could Soon Stream Right to Your Smartphone

Disney’s Paper Generators Could Power Interactive Books of the Future

Incredible Disney Microphone Transmit Sounds Through Your Fingertips

Air-Powered Force Feedback Could Make Kinect Even More Immersive

3D-Printed Optics Could Light Up the Gadgets of the Future

Come the robot uprising, Paraswift will climb the walls, attack from the sky

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