JOT
hku.hk
.hku.hk
ilti-stories
e of Hong
on which
ice within
'eted. An
Various
'er natural
ng effort.
eographic
ices with
specified
issuing a
means to
irge-scale
rk and
ory. The
odes and
the path.
ws along
a locality
of a non-
'ssing the
o extract
International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B2. Istanbul 2004
a) What are the characteristics of the environment that
trigger the need for this guiding service?
b) What kinds of data are needed to enable the
development of a route guiding system with a
vertical/height concern?
c) How are these data integrated and maintained in a
working system?
2. Basic information
2.1 Characteristics of the physical environment
The physical environment is an urban space with vertical
dimensions to consider. Characteristics of the environment
may be classified broadly on the following grounds:
= Accessibility — The space must be accessible by the
general public.
= Administration — An enclosed region must be under a
single authority to assure steady management.
* Flow — The built structures are multilevel and may not
confine necessarily to one building.
Airports, hospitals, and school campuses are good examples
within which visitors frequently need guidance. Many
researchers (Abu-Ghazzeh, 1996, Raubal and Egenhofer 1998)
have completed studies about wayfinding or route guiding in
these environments.
However, an urban space might not be flat. Built structures
must align with the natural landscape to yield staircase like
constructions. There are also suspended walkways built to
connect two buildings for improved accessibility. Hence, it is
possible that the ground level of a building is not the only
entrance to a building. This actuality will affect on foot
navigation and must be considered in route guiding.
2.2 Type of audience
Like other systems, our pedestrian route guiding service can
only target a selected group of audience. Arthur (1992)
categorized users into several groups according to variation in
personal ability and conduct. Travelers may suffer perceptual,
cognitive, literacy or mobility impairment. Individuals from
the first three groups may have difficulties perceiving
information presented on the route guiding system. The last
group needs routing on special conditions (e.g. no staircase)
and more restricted criteria. At this initial stage, our research
will consider only travelers without impairment (i.e. those who
do not belong to any one of four impairments mentioned earlier)
as prospective users of the route guiding service.
The selected target group may still vary in terms of age, gender,
educational background, or spatial capability. Many
rescarchers (Cornell et al 2003, Davis and Pederson 2001,
Malinowski and Gillespie 2001, Schimitz 1999, Vila ct al 2003)
have concluded by empirical methods that these factors do
affect an individual's ability to perceive and react to the
navigation service. The general public, however, are treated
equal at the initial stage of this investigation.
Environmental factors (e.g. weather conditions, personal
preference, or safety concern) that might affect the selection of
paths in a real wayfinding process are also not considered in
our study. Some individuals might prefer climbing up stairs
331
instead of taking a lift for health or enjoyment reasons. These
instances are enormous to exemplify and certainly out of reach
by the proposed guiding system.
2.3 Type of information to present
The type of information to present is associated primarily with
the intention of the users:
Original purpose of the visit
All man-made structures are meant to achieve certain goals,
such as schools for studying, hospitals for treating patients,
etc. Related spatial activities may include finding a room,
locating a person or the whereabouts of an incident within
the structure. These are some apparent reasons why a user
needs to visit a place.
Exploration visit
In some cases, a visitor may have no specific intention but
to wander around the environment. Personal preferences
and other factors like the duration of stay and the time of
visit may be prudent considerations for a guiding system
that provides advices on preset excursions.
Other personal needs
In addition to demands planned ahead of time, it is possible
to have on the spot requests along the way. More explicitly,
a visitor may experience body need for a toilet or restaurant,
emergency need for a fire exit, or financial need for a bank
or shop.
Nagao and Katsuno (1998) tested a Hyper Campus System on
an augmented reality in which GIS data view can be
superimposed on the "real" view by means of direct entry into
the human vision field. The types of information of interest are
grouped as follows:
1) Campus area information — campus map, building
locations, information on outdoor services.
2) Architecture information — outlook images of buildings,
history of construction, information on events related to
buildings.
3) Indoor information — floor plans, room information,
laboratory information, information on indoor activities.
4) Class information — timetable of classes, lecture room
information.
University information — other university related
information.
Un
—
6) User behavior history — chronological list of places
visited and information accessed.
On the whole, there arc many decision variables forming the
contents of information in a route guiding system. Additional
data collected should provide more information but may
decrease the operational efficiency of the system. The balance
among data, cost, and speed should be further investigated.
