Ashweeni Beeharee

A natural wayfinding exploiting photos in pedestrian navigation systems

The increasing power and ubiquity of mobile phones mean that a visitor to a city now carries with them a device capable of giving quite detailed guiding and routing information. Whilst there has been a lot of studies of text and map based guiding applications for mobile devices, in this paper we want to propose and give an initial exploratory study of a guiding system that utilises photographs. These photographs are not explicitly taken with the intention of using them subsequently for giving route directions; rather they are extracted from existing geo-tagged photo collections from mobile phones. A user of our system sees a route description as text and a map that refers to a series of photographs. The main contribution of this paper is in demonstrating this concept and testing it in an exploratory between-subjects experiment. The experiment shows that presenting the right photographs certainly can help with particular types of routing instruction for users not familiar with an area. For example, in unusual situation where the user has to walk through a specific gate or path, photographs provide information and reassurance about the navigation decision.

Exploiting real world knowledge in ubiquitous applications

Electronic tourist guide systems typically recommend locations and sometimes provide navigation information. However, previously such systems were rather naive about what constituted information close to and thus relevant for the user. In this paper we show how to exploit knowledge about features in the real world to compute whether an information resource concerns something that the user can probably see. At run-time, we can take a set of foci, that is 2D polygons to which data is attached, and then filter away those foci that are invisible because they are occluded by nearby buildings. This is performed with the awareness of the inconsistencies and lack of accuracy in both mapping technology and GPS positioning in urban spaces. We have also developed tools to upload geotagged photos and mark foci polygons on a map. Using visibility-filtered information, less cluttered maps can be provided, and the user experience enhanced through removal of irrelevant information.

Minimising pedestrian navigational ambiguities through geoannotation and temporal tagging

The increasing power and ubiquity of smart devices such as mobile phones and PDAs means that a visitor to a city now carries with them a device capable of giving location-specific guiding and routing information. Whilst there have been a number of studies on the use of photographs to supplement text and map-based guiding applications for mobile devices, in this paper we want to propose and give an initial exploratory study of a guiding system that utilises geoannotation to mark photographs. In geoannotation, each photograph is selected from a repository of photographs based on the content and its relevance to the route. The photograph itself is then geoannotated with arrows and other markers on the fly so as to give routing information. Because the photograph in the database will not be taken from the location of the visitor who needs routing information, we need to take care and design cues that are unambiguous. The main contribution of this paper is the discussion of the geoannotation technique, and some informal results from pilot trials on how it helps in addressing certain navigational ambiguities arising in the use of photographs in pedestrian navigation systems.

The case of the missed icon: change blindness on mobile devices

Insights into human visual attention have benefited many areas of computing, but perhaps most significantly visualisation and UI design [3]. With the proliferation of mobile devices capable of supporting significantly complex applications on small screens, demands on mobile UI design and the users visual system are becoming greater. In this paper, we report results from an empirical study of human visual attention, specifically the Change Blindness phenomenon, on handheld mobile devices and its impact on mobile UI design. It is arguable that due to the small size of the screen - unlike a typical computer monitor - a greater visual coverage of the mobile device is possible, and that these phenomena may occur less frequently during the use of the device, or even that they may not occur at all. Our study shows otherwise. We tested for Change Blindness (CB) and Inattentional Blindness (IB) in a single-modal, mobile context and attempted to establish factors in the application interface design that induce and/or reduce their occurrences. The results show that both CB and IB can and do occur while using mobile devices. The results also suggest that the number of separate attendable items on-screen is directly proportional to rates of CB. Newly inserted objects were correctly identified more often than changes applied to existing on-screen objects. These results suggest that it is important for mobile UI designers to take these aspects of visual attention into account when designing mobile applications that attempt to deliver information through visual changes or notifications.

Filtering location-based information using visibility

In this paper we present an approach for exploiting knowledge about features in the real world in order to compute visibility of buildings. This is performed with the awareness of the inconsistencies and lack of accuracy in both mapping technology and GPS positioning in urban spaces. Electronic tourist guide systems typically recommend locations and sometimes provide navigation information. We have augmented this system to exploit visibility knowledge about neighbouring physical features.

Geographical Data in Mobile Applications Uses beyond Map Making

Mobile applications typically only exploit geographic data for the purposes of rendering of local area maps. These maps are an essential part of guiding applications, and a lot of work has been done on methods for rendering of clear, useful maps. However, with the rapidly increasing power of the mobile devices themselves and the increasing ubiquity of GPS positioning, much more can be made of the geographic data itself. For example, location-aware or location-based applications are becoming more common. In this chapter we present three main uses of geographic data. The ?rst is using such data to support the description of regions on map that correspond to places in the real world to which location-based information might be attached. The second usage is for de-cluttering map data to ease the load on mobile applications as well as to improve usability. This is done by exploiting forms of visibility computation that can be done with 2D map data. The third usage is to again exploit visibility analysis to support the insertion and retrieval of geo-located data, using its likely region of use. Finally, as 3D geographic data is becoming more widely available, we brie?y discuss the potential role for 3D map data in mobile applications. All these advances have raised new challenges for storage, retrieval and presentation of map data.

Getting on the S-band Wagon for crossing borders — Exploiting satellite communication for sustainable ITS services

East-European border crossing presents a major challenge for land transportation in Europe and neighbouring countries. In this paper, we discuss a number of factors that make border crossing a complex problem to solve and how it affects both businesses and individuals. In spite of the abundance of ITS solutions, their limitations have restricted their adoption by businesses in Europe that operate across the East-European border. We present the SafeTRIP system architecture, which by exploiting the capabilities of the S-band communication, has the potential to overcome those limitations and offer not only hope but new opportunities. To conclude, we discuss the strengths of the SafeTRIP platform which make it suitable to meet the East-European border challenge by offering an economically sustainable and eco-friendly solution.

SafeTRIP - Interactive Satellite Services for Automotive Applications and Road Safety

The acronym SafeTRIP stands for “Satellite Application for Emergency handling, Traffic alerts, Road safety and Incident Prevention”. Being a European (FP7) project, it brings together 20 partners from seven countries having the common goal of improving road safety, mobility, and environmental protection for all kinds of passenger vehicles. The general objective of the SafeTRIP project is to improve the use of road transport infrastructures and to improve the alert chain (information/prevention/intervention) in case of incidents by offering an integrated system from data collection to service provision. SafeTRIP directly contributes to the achievement of the European Commission’s objectives regarding road transport safety and road mortality reduction. The SafeTRIP system basically is an Intelligent Transport System (ITS) aiming at the combination of digital broadcasting technology with satellite and complementary communication channels to enable novel bi-directional service offerings to the automotive user with pan-European coverage. The satellite will provide seamless coverage for mobile reception whereas the terrestrial components are mainly used to increase the high system capacity in areas with many users or it will increase the quality of service (QoS) in areas with limited satellite coverage. The SafeTRIP project focuses on the test of the core technologies for different applications and usage scenarios. An open architecture is created allowing the development of innovative applications by leveraging a set of enabling services. The demonstrator will support communication via a real satellite, corresponding ground stations or other 3G/4G infrastructure, an on-board unit and end-to-end applications to evaluate the benefits of the architecture and the applications during a trial phase.