Adaptive navigation for virtual environments

Navigation speed for most navigation interfaces is still determined by rate-control devices (e.g. joystick). The interface designer is in charge of adjusting the range of optimal speeds according to the scale of the environment and the desired user experience. However, this approach is not valid for complex environments (e.g. multi-scale environments). Optimal speeds might vary for each section of the environment, leading to non-desired side effects such as collisions or simulator sickness. Thereby, we propose a speedadaptation algorithm based on the spatial relationship between the user and the environment and the user´s perception of motion. The computed information is used to adjust the navigation speed in order to provide an optimal navigation speed and avoid collisions. Two main benefits of our approach is firstly, the ability to adapt the navigation speed in multi-scale environments and secondly, the capacity to provide a smooth navigation experience by decreasing the jerkiness of described trajectories. The evaluation showed that our approach provides comparable performance as existing navigation techniques but it significantly decreases the jerkiness of described trajectories.