A Survey to Understand the Role of Landmarks for GPS Navigation

Abstract

The concept ‘Landmark’ describes a readily identifiable object which serves as external reference point. This includes individual buildings (e.g., a church), signage along a street, or extended features, such as rivers or parks. Landmarks are the most natural concept for humans to find their way in unfamiliar environments. Thus, landmark-based navigation systems would better communicate with their human users and enable them to easier relate the virtual to the physical environment. However, currently, most navigation systems are based on distance and turn instructions only. This survey aims to determine the role, and presentation and selection criteria of landmarks for GPS navigation systems and how to integrate them into GPS navigation systems. For this purpose an online survey has been conducted in May, 2011 using Survey Monkey. 176 participants have completed the survey. Some interesting results were identified from the survey. For example, 57% of the participants prefer a 3D view of landmarks compared to 2.5D (17%) and 2D (36%). Visibility was regarded as the most important attribute for landmark buildings. More than 72% of the respondents showed more interest in a 3D environment for vehicle navigation systems than for pedestrian systems. According to this survey, there is scope for further work to identify and characterise landmarks in their 3D shape and visual appearance.