Abstract: A method of assessing odors, comprises providing an electronic nose that extracts measurements from odors, from which measurements at least n chemical descriptors are extracted where n is greater than unity, and typically around 18. The electronic nose is applied to an odor, and odor information is extracted. The information is plotted to a first location on an n-dimensional sample space, each dimension being related to a respective one of the n chemical descriptors or otherwise optimized for the particular enose and the measurements it makes; and an assessment of the odor is provided based on the plotted location. The assessment may be a description based on odor describing terms, or may be a chemical description in terms of chemicals that can synthesize the odor, and the odor may then be synthesized based on the chemical description.

Abstract: A method of assessing odors, comprises providing an electronic nose that extracts measurements from odors, from which measurements at least n chemical descriptors are extracted where n is greater than unity, and typically around 18. The electronic nose is applied to an odor, and odor information is extracted. The information is plotted to a first location on an n-dimensional sample space, each dimension being related to a respective one of the n chemical descriptors or otherwise optimized for the particular enose and the measurements it makes; and an assessment of the odor is provided based on the plotted location. The assessment may be a description based on odor describing terms, or may be a chemical description in terms of chemicals that can synthesize the odor, and the odor may then be synthesized based on the chemical description.

Abstract: A method for comparing odors comprises: sampling odor sources and detecting primary odorants, then for each odor source, storing each of the sampled odor sources in respective primary vectors of odor descriptors that describe the primary odorants. For each source a source vector is then constructed by summing the primary vectors of the respectively detected primary odorants. Comparison between the odors is achieved by determining an angle between the source vectors, which may then be output. The method may be used in electronic noses and like equipment.