Designing Interactions for Navigation in 3D Mobile Maps

Abstract

Abstract. Due to their intuitiveness, 3D mobile maps have recently emerged as an alternative to 2D mobile maps. However, designing interactions for navigation in a 3D environment using a mobile device is non-trivial. Challenges are posed by the severe limitations of the mobile user interface and of the capacities of the mobile user. This chapter analyses the problem of degrees of freedom: how to make navigation quicker and more intuitive by the means of restricting and guiding movement, yet enabling unrestricted access to all reasonable points-of-interests. Insights from empirical studies of mobile map interaction are presented, in the form of a model of interactive search, to draw requirements for interaction design. Then, the design of controls, landmarks, cameras, interest fields, routes, paths etc. are analysed and several higher-level navigation metaphors are discussed. We propose ways to support spatial updating, rapid alignment of physical and virtual spaces, and overcoming the keyhole problem. A working prototype system is used to illustrate different solutions alongside with alternative designs, weighing their pros and cons.

Touch Interaction With 3d Geographical Visualization on Web: Selected Technological and User Issues

“…The participants in this study compared this system with other techniques. Nurminen and Oulasvirta (2008) and Jankowski et al (2014) dealt with interaction via touch screens of mobile devices. presented another specific type of touch interaction.…”

Identifying suitable projection parameters and display configurations for mobile true-3D displays

“…3D maps provide advantages over conventional 2D maps as landmarks on the former closely resemble their physical counterparts. They also decrease mental load in comparison to 2D maps [22]. True-3D display maps enable users to align their viewpoint with objects in the real-world.…”

A study of street-level navigation techniques in 3D digital cities on mobile touch devices

“…Similarly to [15,14], we assume that the road network is given as a graph with the set of nodes representing the terminal and intersection points of the streets and the set of edges connecting the nodes that represent the streets. Traveling in this mode consists of moving along streets and selecting from available streets at crossings with user-drawn gestures as commands for moving the camera.…”

“…Indeed, the control of the virtual camera may be difficult for novice users, particularly when interaction takes place on a touchscreen. Standard interaction techniques that were designed for general purpose navigation tasks on desktop computers may not fit well the particular case of urban navigation on touch devices [14]. The goal of our work is to investigate this particular context by experimenting with the interaction techniques that appear as the best candidates to complete a locomotion task in a 3D virtual city.…”