Occlusion-Free Animation of Driving Routes for Car Navigation Systems

Abstract

This paper presents a method for occlusion-free animation of geographical landmarks, and its application to a new type of car navigation system in which driving routes of interest are always visible. This is achieved by animating a nonperspective image where geographical landmarks such as mountain tops and roads are rendered as if they are seen from different viewpoints. The technical contribution of this paper lies in formulating the nonperspective terrain navigation as an inverse problem of continuously deforming a 3D terrain surface from the 2D screen arrangement of its associated geographical landmarks. The present approach provides a perceptually reasonable compromise between the navigation clarity and visual realism where the corresponding nonperspective view is fully augmented by assigning appropriate textures and shading effects to the terrain surface according to its geometry. An eye tracking experiment is conducted to prove that the present approach actually exhibits visually-pleasing navigation frames while users can clearly recognize the shape of the driving route without occlusion, together with the spatial configuration of geographical landmarks in its neighborhood.

Comparison of 2D and 3D Vision Gaze with Simultaneous Measurements of Accommodation and Convergence

“…Small optical devices of 10 mm width and 30 mm long for irradiation and measurement of infrared are supported by a bar attached to the cap mounted on the head of the subject. Some previous studies used EMR-9 (or 8) in development of occlusion-free animation of driving routes for car navigation systems (Takahashi et al, 2006); examination of exploratory eye movements for evaluating the development of visual cognitive function in childhood (Egami et al, 2009); and estimation of user arm motion supported by the wearable type robot (Sakaki, 2009). …”

Occlusion-Free Visualization of Important Geographic Features in 3D Urban Environments

“…Takahashi et al [12] developed a system for creating panoramic maps that enhances the visibility of important roads and landmarks. Later, they proposed an occlusion-free route animation for car navigation in mountainous areas [9]. In their system occlusions are eliminated by rearranging onscreen landmarks.…”

“…Therefore, users cannot obtain the spatial information concerning the route and, consequently, will not be able to make good advance preparations for upcoming turns or intersections. It is challenging to eliminate occlusions of important geographic features while simultaneously preserving the global layout of a 3D map [9]; Hirono et al [5]. Moreover, rendering such an occlusion-free view consumes considerable computational resources.…”

Constrained optimization for disoccluding geographic landmarks in 3D urban maps

“…Takahashi et al [19] first presented occlusion-free representation of routes specifically in mountain areas and its animation for application to car navigation systems. This work has been followed by an approach by Möser et al [15], where they distorted the terrain surface to be aligned with the predefined base surface to reduce possible occlusions of geographic features.…”