Using Computer Gaming Technology to Explore Human Wayfinding and Navigation Abilities Within a Built Environment
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USING COMPUTER GAMING TECHNOLOGY TO EXPLORE HUMAN WAYFINDING AND NAVIGATION ABILITIES WITHIN A BUILT ENVIRONMENT Tim Germanchis1, William Cartwright2, Christopher Pettit3 1,2 School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, Victoria 3 Department of Primary Industries, Werribee, Victoria 1 Tel: +61 3 9925 1729, Fax: + 61 3 9663 2517, Email: [email protected] 2 Tel: +61 3 9925 2423, Fax: +61 3 9663 2517, Email: [email protected] 3 Tel: +61 3 9925 3271, Fax: +61 3 9663 2517, Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT Three-dimensional real-time representations of geographical data on computers are known as Geospatial Virtual Environments or GeoVEs. Previous work in the display of GeoVEs utilises a conventional multimedia/hypermedia approach. However, in recent times, large technological advances have seen computer gaming technology offer a fitting environment for serious academic study. Much literature has argued that GeoVEs lack meaningful interaction and realism, especially as compared to games. Therefore, research into applying games technology to GeoVEs may be satisfactorily used to create a more interactive, realistic and hence a more engaging environment. This paper explores the potential of utilising a games approach in displaying GeoVEs and demonstrates a ‘proof-of-concept’ prototype developed at RMIT University’s School of Mathematical and Geospatial Science, built using Crytek’s Far Cry game engine. The intended ‘proof-of-concept’ prototype will model the town of Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia. It is a coastal town boasting historic buildings, situated on top of a slightly undulating landscape. Queenscliff was chosen because of its urban extent, scenic backdrop, and its aerial coverage is a reasonable modelling size for a gaming engine to handle. Our research aims to further contribute to the body of research in wayfinding and navigation within virtual cities. By referencing this prototype to a real world urban planning issue, the impetus behind human spatial cognition derives from the famous urban planner, Kevin Lynch, who in his book, “The image of the city” (1960) he describes a study that looked at how people build a mental representation of the city in which they live in. Building upon his tests and ideas, it is considered that the provision of strategically placed elements will improve ‘place legibility’ of a GeoVE, allowing for improved virtual spatial movement by participants. KEYWORDS Games engines, Geospatial Virtual Environments (GeoVEs), Wayfinding, Navigation, Urban Planning, Usability. INTRODUCTION The choice of a suitable modeling environment relies on the task at hand, which is to develop a virtual representation of the existing township of Queenscliff. Visualizations of large-scale urban environments have traditionally been undertaken through the use of existing multimedia/hypermedia tools such as GeoVRML, Flash, Director3D etc., Computer Aided Design (CAD) or Geographic Information System (GIS) applications (Pettit et al. 2003). Many of these applications do not have the ability to ‘see’ space in an intuitive and understandable manner for the ‘average’ user and lack in the interactive and media capabilities necessary to achieve an appropriate knowledge formation of the geography depicted. New methods and tools for the design of Virtual Environments have the potential to fundamentally change the role of maps in science and society (MacEachren et al. 1999). MacEachren has stated that Virtual Reality (VR) technology produces a more complete perceptual experience than traditional (carto)graphic (sic.) representations. VR offers a range of benefits for portraying geographical information. Three dimensions can provide a means for intuitive organisation of spatial objects that aims to replicate or reflect an abstraction of the real world. This virtual representation in turn utilises the user’s natural perception and memory of space and spatial relationships (Boyd Davis et al. 1996). The interactivity and dynamics of VR can stimulate the user’s engagement and understanding of the real world. By this reasoning, an appropriate modeling environment could come from a popular form of VR, a game, or the underlying driver for games, a gaming engine. The approach for this research is based on the “brief” that advances in games and digital entertainment has been swifter than multimedia tools. Also, games are a familiar medium for users, with an estimated 75 percent of people under the age of thirty having played a computer game (Bryce & Rutter 2001). Nack (2001) argued that this situation was not chiefly responsible for establishing a competitive economic environment, where products thrive with successes and die with flops. Rather, it seems that the underlying question behind the development of games is somewhat different. In digital entertainment, the customer dictates to developers and sales personnel and developers constantly assess who their customers really are and whether their products meet customers’ needs. Multimedia researchers, however, tend to focus on how to solve a particular problem and therefore the real-world applicability element of the equation may be completely ignored. This is the fundamental reason why the skills of ‘non-expert’ users will be identified as part of this research program – to produce a GeoVE that utilises the full technological extent of contemporary digital modelling environments. This will lead to the “non-expert” user gaining a better understanding of a real place being depicted. This research focuses on both geospatial technologists and the wider general public alike, offering an accessible and understandable tool with which to visualize landscapes. For this to be realised, it is intended that the visualization system will be offered using a desktop PC (as opposed to fully or semi-immersive systems) and to further engage user interest the virtual world will be built using games technology. The development of virtual environments as learning tools, based on games technology and applying a gaming metaphor could enable the development of a new pedagogical environment where participants can explore virtual landscapes and geographical knowledgescapes with a newfound confidence in wayfinding and navigation. NAVIGATION AND WAYFINDING IN RELATION TO VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS It has been reported that many users of desktop GeoVEs mention that they feel “lost” when using the product. It is also not uncommon for real world travellers to lose their way, especially in a city environment. The differences between becoming lost in the real and the virtual world differ somewhat though. For example, Lynch (1960) reported that most participants had trouble remembering components of the city in order to find their destination, therefore being “lost” is an issue of wayfinding. In virtual worlds the core problems associated with making users “lost” are linked to the Graphical User Interface (GUI) used for navigation, how it is used for orientation, the display space itself and how users related that display space to the geographic space it depicted (Slocum et al. 2001). This may sound confusing, and this is due to the fact that often wayfinding and navigation are terms that are used interchangeably for everyday use. However, they are not the same when related to the use of virtual environments. Peponis et al. (1990) best described wayfinding as “the ability to find a way (from a starting point) to a particular location in an expedient manner and recognise the destination when reached”. Whilst navigation is most often defined as “the process of determining a path to be travelled by any object through the environment” (Darken & Sibert 1993). Orientation is our awareness of the space around us, including the location of objects and places. Thus it facilitates the understanding of the relations between current and target location (Hunt & Waller 1999; Downs & Stea 1977). Elvins (1997) concluded that “without wayfinding a navigator won’t know in which direction to steer and without navigating, a wayfinder will not have the means to move toward his destination”. Over recent years it has often been the belief that fluid navigation and orientation relies on defining the appropriate metaphoric approach. The main role of metaphors in GUI design is to afford ways of interacting with the, often abstract, computer environment and to help users master complex tasks (Kuhn 1995; Shneidermann 1992). It is long believed that the map or earth metaphor is all that the user requires to make navigation easy in GeoVEs. Fuhrmann et al. (2001) disagreed with this, having assessed an improved “flying saucer” metaphor. However, their results also indicated shortcomings, “providing both advantages and disadvantages” having described that “user-domain-specific designed interaction metaphors support virtual navigation in desktop geovirtual environments but do not necessarily facilitate orientation”. Interesting, they refer to gaming based solutions, “participants suggested that the arrow keys and other letter keys on the keyboard could be used for navigation”. This comes about when navigating through most GeoVEs via mouse movement. Also, “Many participants had experience with videogames and this experience may explain the quicker learning curve. The differences in our second and third focus groups support the contention that it will be important to investigate implications of the “Nintendo Generation” (Cartwright 1999) for future design of GUIs for desktop geovirtual