ABSTRACT

Landmarks are essential and widely used in human navigation. However, many indoor environments lack visually salient landmarks, which leads to difficulties in navigating in and learning complex and similar-looking indoor environments. In this study, we designed and implemented virtual semantic landmarks in Mixed Reality (MR)-based indoor environments and conducted a user study to explore whether such landmarks can assist spatial knowledge acquisition during navigation. More specifically, we employed the untethered, head-mounted mixed reality device Microsoft HoloLens and used iconic holograms to show the semantic landmarks. In the user study, we used sketch map, landmark locating tasks and interview to assess the results of the spatial knowledge acquisition and collect advice on improving the MR-based navigation interface. The results show that virtual semantic landmarks can assist the acquisition of corresponding knowledge, as such landmarks were labeled second most often in landmark locating task. In addition, individual cases show that head-mounted mixed reality devices may influence not only vision, but also height or time perception of certain users. Our result can be applied to facilitate the design of MR-based navigation interfaces and assist spatial knowledge acquisition.

摘要

地标是必不可少的，并广泛用于人类导航。然而，许多室内环境缺乏视觉上显着的地标，这导致难以在复杂且外观相似的室内环境中导航和学习。在这项研究中，我们在基于混合现实 (MR) 的室内环境中设计并实现了虚拟语义地标，并进行了一项用户研究，以探索此类地标是否有助于导航过程中的空间知识获取。更具体地说，我们采用了不受限制的、头戴式混合现实设备 Microsoft HoloLens，并使用标志性全息图来显示语义地标。在用户研究中，我们使用草图、地标定位任务和访谈来评估空间知识获取的结果，并收集改进基于 MR 的导航界面的建议。结果表明，虚拟语义地标可以帮助获取相应的知识，因为这些地标在地标定位任务中被标记为第二。此外，个别案例表明，头戴式混合现实设备不仅会影响视觉，还会影响某些用户的高度或时间感知。我们的结果可用于促进基于 MR 的导航界面的设计并辅助空间知识的获取。