Supporting Search Navigation by Controlled Camera Animation

Successful navigation, or wayfinding, is a function of an accurate mental map of the environment. Developing a reasonably-accurate map of a virtual environment (VE) might take an amount of time users may not have at their disposal. Navigational tools, such as maps, compass, or trails, can work this issue at different levels. In this paper we describe a novel game-inspired navigational tool based on the smooth control of the camera's point of view to indicate a route to a target location, thereby supporting searching navigation tasks. Our approach was evaluated in a medium-sized virtual building where participants searched for target objects in a specific order. Participants in the control group tried two other navigation assistance tools (map and compass), while the experimental group relied on our method. We measured the elapsed time to complete the task as well as the length of the route travelled in comparison to the shortest path to the targets. Evidence has shown significant differences between our experimental method and the control factors for both these performance metric indicators. Additionally, subjects with no previous experience in navigating desktop-based VEs achieved the same performance level as those who were experienced. Because our method is based on a graph that maps collision- free areas within an environment, it may be applied to assist navigation in other related real world applications.