As part of the LOCUS project, I have developed a mobile navigation system for personal digital assistants (PDAs) based on virtual reality technology. The system is called Virtual Navigator and allows for intuitive pedestrian navigation into urban as well as rural environments. Navigation can be performed in two different modes, including automatic and manual. In the automatic mode, an external GPS device provides position information to the application while orientation is calculated from the GPS heading. In the manual mode, user input is required using the stylus of the device, the keyboard or the graphical user interface (GUI) menu. An example screenshot illustrating how virtual navigation inside City University’s campus (London, UK) is performed is shown below:
As far as the software infrastructure is concerned, Virtual Navigator is designed and implemented for PDAs that make use of the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. The graphics functionality is based on VRML technology as it provides the basis for creating mobile and interactive applications. To assist the navigation process, 3D geo-referenced maps are linked with other multimedia content such as 3D text and 3D sound. In addition, the availability of GPRS in the device allows interactive hyperlinks inside the 3D map that provide external navigation information (i.e. link to Google maps). Finally, the GUI is implemented in Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) offering the traditional way of windows-based interfaces.