By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 7:01pm BST 22/04/2008

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It is now possible to stroll around a computer recreation of ancient Pompeii without going anywhere at all, thanks to a "smart floor" that could be the next breakthrough for the computer games industry.
  
Cyberwalk allows users to move in any direction without leaving the platform
After three years and £1.3 million, the "cyberwalk" platform, measuring 4.6 metres square, has been developed that allows people to crawl, walk or stroll in the same place.

It could find a host of uses in combination with virtual reality methods, from helping rehabilitate patients to developing a real life version of the fictional Star Trek "holodeck".

The problem with using a computer to create a virtual environment, by piping images to a head mounted display, is that it is difficult to let someone walk around your alien moon or inside the heart of a cardiac patient without something like the cyberwalk.

Now engineers have taken one non step for man and one giant leap for the games industry. The device was built by Martin Schwaiger. in the EU funded "cyberwalk" project coordinated by Dr Marc Ernst at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, in Tubingen, Germany.

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