Attentive navigation for viewpoint control in virtual environments

Three-dimensional virtual environments and teleoperation activities depend on the ability to position an egocentric viewpoint at meaningful locations. Evidence from foundational research has led to the development of control strategies that generally adopt an all-or-nothing approach to guiding the viewer to useful vistas. This work examines attentive navigation, a technique for partially automating viewpoint control to promote a supportive yet unscripted exploration of a virtual environment. A collection of three experiments was designed to assess the effectiveness of attentive navigation versus commonly used free navigation techniques. Results show that this approach has promising consequences for improving object recognition, developing an understanding of the configuration of objects, and searching for target objects. Actual or potential applications of this research include improved interaction techniques for extracting information from visual representations, virtual environments, and teleoperation experiences.