Schematization of Virtual 3D Cities

The spreading application of 3D geovirtual environments show that they are evolving from an expert tool to a platform addressing everyday needs of average users. One of the key research questions is how to visualize spatial information in virtual environments. It has been shown that people can acquire spatial knowledge from a virtual environment and also can transfer this knowledge to the real world.

Viewed from a cognition science point of view, a virtual environment (VE) “[...] offers the user a more naturalistic medium in which to acquire spatial information, and potentially allows to devote less cognitive effort to learning spatial information than by maps.“ (Montello et al. 2004, pp:275).

We introduce a new approach of transferring schematization principles developed for 2D map representations to a 3D virtual city. We present the extension of wayfinding choremes, a schematization principle developed by A. Klippel, to 3D wayfinding choremes. (see theory of wayfinding choremes).

We apply the schematization principle of 3D wayfinding choremes to a virtual city. Therefore, not only the angles of the intersections but also the angles of the buildings have to be changed at each intersection on a specific route by their prototypes.

Main publications

Glander, T., Peters, D., Trapp, M., Döllner, J.: 3D wayfinding choremes: A cognitively motivated representation of route junctions in virtual environments. In: AGILE - 12th AGILE International Conference on Geographic Information Science. (2009)

Peters, D., Richter, K.F.: Taking off to the third dimension - schematization of virtual environments. In: International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research, Vol. 3, pp. 20-37. Special Issue, GI-DAYS 2007, Münster: Young Researchers Forum. (2008)