1.5. Spatial Navigation

Spatial Navigation is part of our daily life. We navigate through the world with each step we do. Real objects such as buildings, trees, etc. serve to get our bearings.

Orientation problems arise whenever our surroundings have very few objects which can be used to get our bearings, for example on unknown terrain, in darkness, in the desert or at sea. To be able to orientate us in such terrains, different navigation techniques emerged.

A similar situation can be found in the virtual space. Because we do not have real objects that can be used to get our bearings, spatial navigation tools are necessary to solve our orientation problems.

In this unit, we introduce the realisation of spatial navigation in multimedia applications such as web pages and interactive 2D maps. Especially for interactive screen maps, spatial navigation is very important.