3D Wayfinding Choremes: A Cognitively Motivated Representation of Route Junctions in Virtual Environments

Research in cognitive sciences suggests that orientation and navigation along routes can be improved if the graphical representation is aligned with the user’s mental concepts of a route. In this paper, we analyze an existing 2D schematization approach called wayfinding choremes and present an implementation for virtual 3D urban models, transferring the approach to 3D. To create the virtual environment, we transform the junctions of a route defined for a given road network to comply with the eight sector model, that is, outgoing legs of a junction are slightly rotated to align with prototypical directions in 45° increments. Then, the adapted road network is decomposed into polygonal block cells, the individual polygons being extruded to blocks and their facades textured. For the evaluation of our 3D wayfinding choreme implementation, we present an experiment framework allowing for training and testing subjects by a route learning task. The experimental framework can be parameterized flexibly, exposing parameters to the conductor. We finally give a sketch of a user study by identifying hypotheses, indicators, and, hence, experiments to be done.