SEMANTIC WAYFINDING WITH UBIQUITOUS CARTOGRAPHY

G. Gartner

Vienna University of Technology, Department of Geoinformation and Cartography, Vienna, Austria

georg.gartner@tuwien.ac.at

This presentation deals with current efforts at the Technical University of Vienna to analyze methods of wayfinding support for pedestrians in mixed indoor and outdoor environments. It is assumed, that methods of ubiquitious cartography in terms of a combination of active and passive systems with various presentation forms can support the wayfinding process. In this context the term ubiquitious cartography follows the definition of Ota (2004), who stated "ubiquitous mapping is that people can access any map at anywhere and anytime through the information network", incorporating also Morita's perspective (2004): "includes not only map making but also map use and map communication considering the interaction between map, spatial image, and the real world".

The main research question include the modelling of the behaviour of pedestrians and the possibility of meeting the needs/behaviour by a combination of active and passive systems. The use case includes therefore the usage of mobile devices in combination with short-range sensors and public displays. The main aim is to make the environment "smart", so that adaptively the "smart" environment delivers customised and location-dependent information for a particular user, instead of trying to permanently track and send information from centralized systems.