Constrained Navigation Environments

Finding one´s way through a complex virtual environment is a standard task in 3D graphics and virtual reality applications. Constrained navigation is a method that appropriately restricts the user´s degrees of freedom when there is a poor match between the goal of an exploration activity, the control device, and the user´s familiarity with the exploration domain. The fundamental prerequisite for the adoption of constrained navigation is that the designer can significantly improve the quality of the user´s experience by choosing a predetermined parametric set of viewing parameters or algorithms. We discuss families of constrained navigation methods appropriate to desktop and immersive virtual reality applications. We illustrate the approach with a variety of examples, emphasizing the possibility of topologically nontrivial navigation spaces, and present the results of a preliminary user study.