The work resulted in a “principal odour map” – the olfactory equivalent of the colour palette you might use on a computer. “Anybody who’s looked at a map of colour in Photoshop knows intuitively what’s going on,” says Mainland, and just as the “colour space” in such a map helps us say that purple is closer to red than to green, the team’s odour map allowed them to locate scents in a kind of multi-dimensional “smell space”.
“RGB is three-dimensional, but you can depict it on a flat piece of paper,” [Alex] Wiltschko says. “There’s three channels of colour information in our eye, but there’s 350 channels of odour information in our nose.
— Read more in ‘Giving computers a sense of smell’: the quest to scientifically map odours at The Guardian.
Mr. Mainland’s works are very interesting. I remember there was a previous post which he was interviewed as well.
I do wonder how these maps help “visualize” scent. E.g. how do you show the intensity of a note?
Yes, I think I’ve posted quite a few articles now about this project…there seems to be lots of media interest.
And no idea!
I’m happy to learn of any serious scientific interest in the sense of smell. It has been neglected for far too long. I believe its role in our physical and mental well-being is far greater than most people realize.