Landmark-based navigation systems have proven benefits relative to traditional turn-by-turn systems that use street names and distances. However, one obstacle to the implementation of landmark-based navigation systems is the complex challenge of selecting salient local landmarks at each decision point for each user. In this paper, we present Pharos, a novel system that extends turn-by-turn navigation instructions using a single global landmark (e.g. the Eiffel Tower, the Burj Khalifa, municipal TV towers) rather than multiple, hard-to-select local landmarks. We first show that our approach is feasible in a large number of cities around the world through the use of computer vision to select global landmarks. We then present the results of a study demonstrating that by including global landmarks in navigation instructions, users navigate more confidently and build a more accurate mental map of the navigated area than using turn-by-turn instructions.
From a more applied perspective, Wither at al. @cite_49 showed that people can navigate solely using landmarks highlighted in panoramic imagery. Even in the wild' in natural environments, as shown by Snowdon and Kray @cite_31 , there are types of landmarks which are feasible to be used in mobile navigation systems. Recently, @cite_53 have found evidence, that indoors pedestrian navigation instructions on mobile devices should only depict a single prominent landmark (instead of four) for high navigation efficiency. In contrast, the Pharos approach is primarily targeted at navigation in urban environments. While our work is related to the work of Wither at al. @cite_49 , it is landmark-centric and instead of local landmarks the Pharos approach relies on global ones.
@cite_31 @cite_49 @cite_53
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Landmarks are a key element in navigation and have been used extensively to provide navigation support to pedestrians through mobile devices in urban areas. Natural environments differ significantly from built environments in a number of ways including, for example, the degree of structure and regularity, the types and density of landmarks, and the way in which people navigate in those environments. In this paper, we investigate how people currently navigate 'in the wild', and whether landmark-based navigation support through mobile devices is a feasible option in such settings. We present results from two studies: a questionnaire-based study focussing on current practice and the use of landmarks, and a qualitative lab-based study using immersive panoramic photographs and photographs of (natural) landmarks investigating the feasibility of landmark-based navigation support in natural environments. The results indicate that a small number of means are currently used for navigation in the wild, and that certain types of landmarks might be feasible for navigation support on mobile devices. We also found initial evidence that immersive panoramic photographs may constitute a promising way to evaluate mobile applications. In the past people have used very different forms of directions depending on how those directions were acquired. If a person is giving another person directions in a familiar area, he will frequently use landmarks to describe the route [10]. If the person gets the route from a personal navigation system though, it will be displayed on a map and make use of street names for the directions. In this paper we present a system to automatically give landmark based navigation to pedestrians by using panoramic imagery to both find salient landmarks along a route automatically, and to present those landmarks to a pedestrian navigator in an immersive and intuitive manner. Our system primarily uses automatically detected business signs as landmarks, and currently works in a half dozen cities around the world. We have also evaluated our system and found that people can effectively navigate solely using landmark enhanced panoramas of decision points along the route. Research examining pedestrian navigation systems that use landmarks to explain routes became popular in the past years. Nevertheless, it is still an open question how many landmarks should be depicted at once. In this paper a user study is presented that evaluates two different indoor navigation system designs that depict either one (N = 63) or four (N = 60) landmarks to guide the user. The time it took the participants to recognize where to go was captured as a dependent variable. Results show that the interface only depicting one landmark leads to faster self-localization. Therefore, it is argued that a pedestrian navigation system should mainly depict one highly salient landmark in a navigation instruction in order to keep navigation efficiency high.