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The science
This is not what a smell objectively looks like.
Nothing does — smell has no inherent colour. What research does show is that most people, synesthete or not, match smells to colours, shapes and sounds in surprisingly consistent ways. OSMOS is built on those shared crossmodal correspondences , and every visual choice below is labelled by how strong its basis is:
Evidence backed by published studies Physical follows from the chemistry Artistic a design choice, not a finding
True olfactory–visual synesthesia is different: it's rare, and each synesthete's visions are personal — one person's chocolate is pink and stripy, another's is a hazy mist (Russell et al. 2015). OSMOS doesn't claim to show anyone's synesthesia; it shows the patterns most minds share.
Active signal
How the mapping works
You see Driven by Basis
Colour (hue) The colour people associate with the smell's source — lemon → yellow, mint → cyan-green.Gilbert et al. 1996; Stevenson et al. 2012; Levitan et al. 2014 Evidence Darkness Stronger smells are matched to darker colours. Compressed on-screen so very dark scents stay visible.Kemp & Gilbert 1997 Evidence Round ↔ angular Pleasant, sweet smells read round; unpleasant, intense, sour or sharp smells read angular.Hanson-Vaux et al. 2013; Deroy et al. 2013 Evidence Pitch (sound) Fruity and sweet smells sound higher; smoky, musky and woody smells lower.Belkin et al. 1997; Crisinel & Spence 2012 Evidence Rise speed & how long trails linger Volatility: fleeting top notes (citrus, mint) rise fast and vanish; heavy base notes (musk, woods, vanilla) drift slowly and linger. Physical Fading over time Olfactory adaptation — with continuous exposure your nose turns the volume down.Dalton 2000 Physical Blends Up to 3 at once: people struggle to pick out more than about three smells in a mixture, and mixtures usually smell weaker than the sum of their parts.Laing & Francis 1989; Thomas-Danguin et al. 2014 Evidence Density More particles for stronger smells. Artistic Turbulence Cold, sour, acidic and chemical smells jitter — they feel sharp (many stimulate the trigeminal nerve), but the motion itself is our choice. Artistic Timbre Angular smells get brighter, buzzier tones — extends the shape result to sound by analogy. Artistic Background field Swirl complexity grows with how many qualities a smell has. Artistic
Where the numbers come from
Each scent is described with the 20 semantic descriptors used by Keller & Vosshall (2016) — the same vocabulary behind the DREAM olfaction prediction challenge — plus earthy and metallic from the Dravnieks (1985) odour atlas, and ratings of intensity, pleasantness and volatility.
Be clear-eyed about what that means: those studies rated single molecules with real panels. OSMOS's values for everyday smells like "coffee" are editorial estimates for a typical encounter, informed by that work and by flavour chemistry — not measurements. Pleasantness especially varies by person and culture.
What OSMOS can't tell you
It can't smell. The camera recognises objects (a cup, a book), not odours — and each object's scent is an assumption, shown as one. Intensity depends heavily on concentration and distance. Colour matches shift between cultures. And many people are blind to specific molecules (musks, β-ionone, rotundone), so the "same" smell genuinely differs from nose to nose.
Model settings
Model adaptation
Active scents gradually fade, as they would in your nose. Remove a scent and give it a minute to recover. Hold on the stage to sniff.
Sound layer
A drone per scent: pitch from the odour–pitch research, timbre from shape.
References
Belkin, K., Martin, R., Kemp, S. E., & Gilbert, A. N. (1997). Auditory pitch as a perceptual analogue to odor quality. Psychological Science , 8, 340–342.
Crisinel, A.-S., & Spence, C. (2012). A fruity note: crossmodal associations between odors and musical notes. Chemical Senses , 37, 151–158.
Dalton, P. (2000). Psychophysical and behavioral characteristics of olfactory adaptation. Chemical Senses , 25, 487–492.
Deroy, O., Crisinel, A.-S., & Spence, C. (2013). Crossmodal correspondences between odors and contingent features: odors, musical notes, and geometrical shapes. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , 20, 878–896.
Dravnieks, A. (1985). Atlas of Odor Character Profiles . ASTM DS 61.
Gilbert, A. N., Martin, R., & Kemp, S. E. (1996). Cross-modal correspondence between vision and olfaction: the color of smells. American Journal of Psychology , 109, 335–351. PubMed
Hanson-Vaux, G., Crisinel, A.-S., & Spence, C. (2013). Smelling shapes: crossmodal correspondences between odors and shapes. Chemical Senses , 38, 161–166. doi
Keller, A., & Vosshall, L. B. (2016). Olfactory perception of chemically diverse molecules. BMC Neuroscience , 17, 55. PMC
Kemp, S. E., & Gilbert, A. N. (1997). Odor intensity and color lightness are correlated sensory dimensions. American Journal of Psychology , 110, 35–46. PubMed
Laing, D. G., & Francis, G. W. (1989). The capacity of humans to identify odors in mixtures. Physiology & Behavior , 46, 809–814.
Levitan, C. A., et al. (2014). Cross-cultural color-odor associations. PLOS ONE , 9(7), e101651. doi
Russell, A., Stevenson, R. J., & Rich, A. N. (2015). Chocolate smells pink and stripy: exploring olfactory-visual synesthesia. Cognitive Neuroscience , 6. doi
Stevenson, R. J., Rich, A., & Russell, A. (2012). The nature and origin of cross-modal associations to odours. Perception , 41, 606–619. doi
Thomas-Danguin, T., et al. (2014). The perception of odor objects in everyday life: a review on the processing of odor mixtures. Frontiers in Psychology , 5, 504. doi
A synesthetic instrument
osmos
the hidden visual language of smell
Some people never merely remember a colour when they smell coffee — they see one. OSMOS turns scent into light and sound using what research shows about how all of us match smells to colour, shape and pitch — and tells you exactly where the evidence ends and the art begins.
131 scents
22 descriptors
14 references
Begin
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