Incorporating a Virtual Presenter in a Resource Adaptive Navigational Help System

Autor: Jörg Baus and Andreas Butz and Antonio Krüger

Herausgeber:

We discuss a virtual presenter in the form of a 3D avatar whose task it is to show users their way through a (3D model of a) public building. Our thesis is that when looking for way descriptions, seeing such a walkthrough guided by a virtual scout is easier to remember than a purely textual description or the kind of annotated floor plans used widely in today's public buildings. Furthermore, we discuss some technical aspects of how such a scout can be constructed and what underlying data and processes are needed for the automated generation of guided route descriptions. One of our main goals is to give the avatar the ability to react to the spatial environment in an appropriate manner, e.g., by pointing to relevant objects and following a path that can be easily memorized by the viewer. We introduce the concept of bounds objects useful for the computation of spatial relations and behavior activation of the virtual presenter. The final presentation is then performed by the virtual presenter moving along a path scouting the surroundings. The presenter is made sensitive to the objects in the environment, thus getting only the relevant information depending on its task and position. It will perform the task alone without system intervention, by querying the environment using the bounds concept to trigger behaviors and to establish an egocentric frame of reference.