Disney Imagineering and the Tech Behind Disney’s $60 Billion Parks Bet

On a recent tour of the Disney Imagineering headquarters in Glendale, Calif., Larry Smoot, a Disney research fellow, appeared to be walking in place, as each tile on a small patch of flooring tilted and pivoted with him, in response to his every movement. 

Smoot is one of several thousand employees globally who are part of Disney’s Imagineering unit, which designs, builds and imagines the technology, creative and conceptual designs behind new theme parks, attractions, cruise ships and resorts. 

While the unit, which first started in 1952, has had a consistent workload at Disney, including testing out some of Disney’s more “moonshot” ideas and building its animatronics for parks, the number of projects recently has been on the upswing, as Disney plans its $60 billion expansion of the parks and experiences business, including a new Frozen theme park in Paris, a possible revamp of Dinoland U.S.A. at Animal Kingdom in Florida and an expanded Disneyland.

And some of the innovations already in the works, which include Smoot’s HoloTile Floor and a gregarious, fast-learning robot, could provide Disney with a blueprint for moving forward.

During The Hollywood Reporter‘s visit to one of the Imagineering buildings, Smoot explained that the small circle of tiles that make up the HoloTile Floor allow a person to move in any direction on the floor by using LiDAR technology to track that person’s actions and tell the tiles how to counter those movements. While the demo floor is small, the tiles can also be built out and expanded to any size.

The team is beginning to use it as a design tool, because when paired with a virtual reality headset, Imagineers can walk through a model of a new possible attraction or park and get a feel for it. 

“This floor will allow the Imagineers to be able to design parks quickly, efficiently and to be able to walk through things that they’ve not yet built,” said Smoot, who is also the co-inventor of the project. 

The floor can accommodate multiple people or objects moving in different directions at once, without running into each other, as Smoot demonstrated with a fellow engineer as the two compete in a video game powered by their body movements. Because of the freedom of movement it allows, Disney is also exploring using it as a dance floor, for possible use on stages, which they have tested with Kevin and Marcel Wilson, choreographers who have both worked for the company. 

With the LIDAR technology tracking my movements, I was directed to put out my hand, as if casting a spell, and, in tandem, a box slid across the floor, a possible use-case which the engineers say “gives guests access to superpowers.” Because it can be used to move static objects, such as a chair, across the tiles, Imagineers have also thought about using it to turn everyday objects into possible rides. 

Moving through the expansive warehouse, we walked past a cluster of prototypes for the Spider-Man Stuntronics robot, which progress from a stick-like object to the human-sized figure that now leaps off buildings as part of a show at Avengers Campus at California Adventure. One of the prototypes is signed by both Tom Holland and Kevin Feige, president of Marvel studios. 

In the corner stood a giant Hulk-sized character suit, which has previously been tested in the parks, but has not yet become part of the regular rotation. This fits into the larger goal of the unit, explained at the beginning of the tour, which is to move quickly from idea to prototype and then to test it out.  

Then, a high-pitched squeaking rang out down the corridor.

Down the hall, a knee-high robot, outfitted with antennas, speakers and LED arrays for eyes, came into view. As I took notes, the robot pivoted its head to gaze up at me and began to rock back and forth on its two legs, imitating a kind of dance, amid some more squeals. 

The robot is one of the Stars Wars’ BDX droids, which are currently being play tested – meaning brought to parks to interact with guests for a specific period of time  – and making daily appearances at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland Park through early June. 

The droids are battery powered and can walk around the grounds for close to two hours, with a human guiding its movements with a game-like controller. 

As explained by Moritz Bächer, an associate lab director at Disney Research, who is typically based in Zurich, Imagineers take procedural or cinematic animation and put that in a simulation environment to train the robots, which can imitate the artist-provided motions within two days. Certain moods can also be overlayed, so the robot’s actions are more cautious, for example, when interacting with a more timid guest.

The idea is to make it into a type of character in the park, rather than just serving as a piece of new technology. 

The droids were built and play tested in less than a year. And given the speed at which it can be built and can learn new movements, using reinforcement learning, the plan is to introduce more. 

“That’s basically a technology that scales pretty well and can be applicable to many characters, not just this one,” Bächer said.