Virtual Navigation Environment for Blind and Low Vision People


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Date

2018-07-11

Publication Type

Conference Paper

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

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Data

Abstract

For comprehensively participating in society, independent and safe mobility is an important skill for many daily activities. Spatial cognition is one of the most important human capabilities and addresses the acquisition, processing and utilization of knowledge about the spatial layout of environments. Humans predominantly use the visual sense for this and for blind and low vision people, the lack of spatial perception reduces their quality of life and their ability of independent living. In particular the spatial navigation in unknown environments imposes challenges, since there is no possibility to train navigation tasks in advance. Today, blind and visually impaired people still rely on traditional navigation aids such as a cane for micro-navigation, which - however - does not help for developing orientation at larger scale or for planning of routes. To overcome this problem, this paper introduces the concept of a virtual environment that allows experiencing unknown locations by real walking while still staying in a sage controlled environment. Since this virtual environment can be controlled in its complexity, it can be adjusted from an abstract training scenario to a real-life situation such as train stations or airports.

Publication status

published

Book title

Computers Helping People with Special Needs. 6th International Conference, ICCHP 2018, Linz, Austria, July 11-13, 2018, Proceedings, Part II

Journal / series

Volume

10897 (2)

Pages / Article No.

114 - 122

Publisher

Springer

Event

16th Biennial International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP 2018)

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

Virtual Reality; Real walking in virtual environments

Organisational unit

03641 - Wegener, Konrad (emeritus) / Wegener, Konrad (emeritus) check_circle
08844 - Kunz, Andreas (Tit.-Prof.) / Kunz, Andreas (Tit.-Prof.) check_circle

Notes

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