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In light of global warming, energy conservation is indispensable. Residential electricity use, nevertheless, escapes consumers’ notice. Thus feedback is essential, yet households’ access to information is vastly limited. Smart metering renders continuous feedback over the Internet possible, but users perceive existing web tools to be inaccessible and incomprehensible. Hence the aim has been to design a user interface so as to serve the purpose of increasing awareness and energy efficiency in households. Ease of access and straightforwardness have been established as key factors and conventional bar charts in combination with color symbolism have proven to be useful in this respect.

In an eye-tracking pilot-project we have asked 6 children, age of 11, to read an opening,

from a geography book for grade five. The aim of the study was to investigate

the role of illustrations in text-books and to what extent they contribute to the learning

process.

In spite of all electronic navigation devices on a modern ship bridge, navigators still lose their orientation. Reasons for this might be excessive cognitive workload caused by too many instruments to read and compile, navigation information that is displayed in a cognitively demanding way, short decision times due to high speed or fatigue due to minimum manning and long work hours.

This work addresses the problem of map information displayed in a less than optimal way. Three new concepts are presented: the bridge perspective, the NoGO area polygons and a dual lane seaway network. Map reading can be difficult due to the problem of mental rotations. By allowing a 3-D nautical chart to be viewed from an egocentric bridge perspective, the need for mental rotations can be removed. The cognitively demanding calculations necessary to find out if there is enough water under the keel can be made by the chart system and the result displayed as of free water and NoGo areas. On land car driving is facilitated by a road-network and a sign system. This notion can be further developed on sea and make navigation easier and safer.

These concepts were then tested in a laboratory experiment, in interviews and in a prototyping project. The results were very promising. The experiment in a laboratory maze showed that map reading from an egocentric perspective was more efficient than using traditional paper and electronic maps. Interviews and expert evaluation of prototypes also showed great interest from practitioners in the field.

In the event that remote pilotage is introduced in a wider extent, this paper suggests using nautical charts displayed in a 3-D egocentric perspective to improve situation awareness for both for the land based pilot and the bridge crew of the pilotless ship. The system will allow the port to send pre-planned routes with times and courses to individual ships, and present them in an ergonomic and intuitive way. The efficiency of the 3-D egocentric view has been shown in previous research.

Informationsdesignsforskaren Thomas Porathe presenterade i våras i en avhandling en ny metod att presentera sjökortsinformation på fartygsbryggan. Genom att visa kartan ur ett ”bryggperspektiv” uppnås en kognitiv avlastning som förenklar navigeringen, särskilt i höga hastigheter när informationstrycket är högt och beslutstiden kort.

Problemet är att många människor har svårt att läsa kartor. Nästa alla har någon gång tvingats vända kartan ”upp och ner” i något gathörn för att bli klar över om det är till vänster eller höger färden skall gå. På sjön är den en dygd att hålla sjökortet orienterat i nord upp. Radarskärmar och elektroniska sjökort används också vanligen i denna orientering. När fartyget är på sydgående rör det sig alltså uppifrån och ner på sjökortet och en fyr som i verkligheten befinner sig till på styrbordssidan (till höger) om fartyget, återfinns till vänster på sjökortet. För att jämföra sjökortet med verkligheten tvingas navigatören till att mentalt rotera kartbilden 180 grader. Man har experimentellt kunnat visa att detta tar tid och det är svårt och kan bli fel. Vi människor har också olika lätt för mentala rotationer. Den så kallade ”spatiala förmågan” varierar och avtar dessutom med åldern. Ett sätt att förenklar navigeringen i själva ”körsituationen” är att presentera sjökortet ur ett bryggperspektiv där man ser samma vy på skärmen som genom vindrutan dagtid, men med sjökortsinformationen överlagrad på vattenytan.

Ytterligare kognitiv avlastning kan uppnås genom att låta systemet räkna fram farbara och icke farbara vatten för rådande vattenstånd, det egna fartygets djupgående, sjöhävning och squat. Kanske också en fullt utbyggd infrastruktur av sjövägar med skilda körbanor och vägkorsningar virtuellt synliga i sjökortet som landsvägar på land kan göra det lättare att förutse mötande fartygs manövrer och underlätta beslutfattande i närsituationer.

A 3-D Nautical GIS is suggested in this paper. The system is aimed at nautical navigation and simplifies navigation by adding three major features to existing chart systems: The egocentric view, by allowing the geographical data to be viewed from an bridge perspective the problem of mental rotations is removed; the seaways, displaying traffic separated fairways and individual track lines and the NoGo area polygons displaying warning areas for waters too shallow for the individual ship in the current tidal situation.

An emergency exit sign can be more or less visible. Something has to do with the sign itself: with bright colors it might be more visible than with faint colors. But also the context plays a role: alone on a white wall it will most likely become more visible than on a wall full of brightly colored posters. There is also a subjective side to the matter; you will more likely see the sign in an emergency situation than in an everyday situation. In the field of Information Design there is a need for an objective and easily administered measurement of conspicuity. Today a time measurement using visual search is possible, but often difficult and unpractical to use in real life.

In a small pilot study I have tested a new method of conspicuity index, a measurement method where the subject starts by looking at the target whose conspicuity is to be measured, then gradually looks away while attending to the target in the corner of his or her eyes until detection no longer is possible. The angle where detection ends is the conspicuity angle. Previous studies show a high correlation between the conspicuity index and traditional search time measurements. Results from this study show good accordance with intuitive impression of saliency.

Maritime navigational information has historically been distributed in two different perspectives: the surface, or bridge, perspective of the sailing descriptions and coastal views, and the synthetic, bird’s eye perspective of the nautical charts. A coastal view contains topographical information necessary for visual identification that the chart often lacks. But the coastal view is a static picture depicting the coast from one particular place. Modern computer visualisation and 3-D technique now allows us to show the chart like a dynamic coastal view from a bridge perspective adding fair-ways and shallow water areas and thus possibly making conning more intuitive and safe.

I ett forskningsprojekt som bedrivs av Mälardalens högskola och Chalmers tekniska högskola har man undersökt navigering med traditionella papperskaror, elektroniska sjökort i nord-upp och head-upp samt i en ny typ av egocentriskt 3D-perspektiv. En laboratoriestudie med universitetsstudenter och sjöbefäl gav en klar fingervisning om att 3D-vyn var den mest effektiva. Studien presenterades i en avhandling 2006 och ligger till grund för ett utvecklingsprojekt med nya 3D-sjökort.

In spite of all electronic navigation devises on a modern ship bridge, bridge crews sometimes loose their orientation. Reasons for this might be excessive cognitive workload caused by fatigue, short decision times due to high speed or too many instruments to read and integrate. By tradition electronic chart displays and radar screens are displayed in north-up orientation. On south bound courses this necessitates mental rotations to align the chart with the real world. Research has shown mental rotations to take time and to be a possible source of errors. In an information design research project on intuitive maps at Mälardalen University in Sweden, a 3-D nautical chart has been proposed allowing the bridge crew to access an egocentric bridge perspective of the chart. The cognitive workload is supposedly eased when mental rotations no longer are needed. To test this hypothesis, a laboratory experiment was designed. Forty-five subjects each drove a vehicle trough four different mazes using four different types of maps: a traditional paper chart, an electronic chart plotter in northup mode, an electronic chart plotter in course-up mode and the proposed egocentric 3-D nautical chart. The experiment showed significant results suggesting that navigation with a 3-D egocentric display leads to faster decision making and less errors.

This paper first presents an overview of a research project in the field of information design concerning a new 3-D decision support system for nautical navigation, a 3-D cart. The paper then discusses landmark representation in the virtual environment of the chart; particularly the representation of forested islands and

coasts where the tree canopy is an important feature in the silhouette. Experiment with removing certain parts of laser scanned data, shows promising results when it comes to recreating the silhouette of islands with forests or groves of trees in the virtual environment.

Route guidance systems in vehicles has started to use an oblique, slanted view of the map, mimicking something of the egocentric perspective the driver sees through the windscreen. Is this an effective strategy? What is the most effective map design to convey route guidance to drivers, and how can this be measured? In an experiment with four different modes of map displays the speed of decision making and accuracy of navigation have been tested. The four map types were: the traditional paper map, the north-up electronic map with position plotting (the symbol of the vehicle moving in the static map), the head-up electronic map (map moving, the position of the vehicle static and facing up) and the egocentric view map display, a 3-D scenery mimicking the world outside the wind screen. The experiment showed clearly that the egocentric 3-D view was the most effective.

A new method of measuring visual saliency has been introduced by the Dutch psychologist Alexander Wertheim.  By looking at the target that is to be measured, and moving the gaze point radially out from the target until the target can no longer be detected, an angle between the target and the point of no detection can be measured.  This angle can be used as a measurement of the conspicuity of the target. In the study presented here, this “conspicuity index” shows good correlations to intuitive impressions of target saliency and also shows small variance.  The findings confirm earlier studies by the inventor of the method and suggest that this could be a valuable tool for the visual literacy community.

A 3-D Nautical GIS is suggested in this paper. The system is aimed at nautical navigation and simplifies navigation by adding three major features to existing chart systems: The egocentric view, by allowing the geographical data to be viewed from an bridge perspective the problem of mental rotations is removed; the seaways, displaying traffic separated fairways and individual track lines and the NoGo area polygons displaying warning areas for waters too shallow for the individual ship in the current tidal situation.

In an information design research project at Mälardalen University in Sweden intuitive map design for nautical navigation has been tested. In a laboratory experiment traditional electronic chart plotters in exocentric bird’s eye view were compared with a 3-D map displayed in an egocentric “surface perspective”. The 3-D maps clearly resulted in shorter decision times and less errors moving through a maze.

This article presents recent information design

research from Mälardalen University in Sweden

where a project aims at developing a new 3-D

nautical chart that can be viewed both from a

traditional bird’s eye perspective, and from a new

egocentric bridge view perspective. In the article

an experiment is presented which shows the new

egocentric view to be more efficient (faster decision

making and fewer errors) than the traditional

display modes.

Navigering i 3D-sjökort ger snabbare och säkrare beslutsfattande. Men hur strukturerar vi ett Nautiskt 3D-GIS ?

Many people find map reading difficult. The problem lies in translating an exocentric bird’s-eye perspective of traditional maps into an egocentric perspective of the human vision. The experiment presented here suggests that electronic egocentric map displays using real-time 3-D and GPS positioning technology are more efficient, less erroneous, and more user-friendly than traditional static maps or electronic north-up or head-up maps.

Background

High speed, short decision time, un-integrated and complex navigational equipment on the bridge lead to high cognitive workload for the navigator and increases the risk of accidents at sea. An optional presentation mode instead of the traditional exocentric nautical chart in an egocentric bridge view offers relieves the navigators from cognitive demanding mental rotations. Other suggestions include computing present draught, water level etc. and visualizing accessible water of an individual ship in the current water level using dynamic NoGo Area polygons. A traffic separated road network structure of seaways and individual track-lines add additional aid to course keeping and wayfinding (Porathe, 2006).

A resent decision by the Swedish government to appoint a committee to investigate the possibility of shore-based or remote pilotage (Swedish Government, 2006) set focus on research needs of aids to the bridge crew of ships entering unknown harbours. Using the features suggested above individual track-lines could be sent to arriving ships using web or AIS. The track-lines would lead the ship from the sea all the way to the particular berth assigned for her, designating speed and safe rendezvous points with other ships along the way. The track-lines would act as a graphical ships traffic control system.

Methods

Field studies, laboratory experiments and prototyping methods have been used to develop the suggested 3-D Nautical Chart system. Suggested methods for further development of the remote pilotage system would also include task analyses, prototyping and field studies.

Results

The laboratory experiment showed significantly better results using the egocentric 3-D chart compared to traditional paper charts, and head-up and north-up electronic charts (Porathe, 2006).

Discussion/Conclusions

Remote pilotage would relieve the pilots of the many times dangerous boarding and disembarking of ships in heavy weather. However care must also be taken to ensure the safety of crews entering into unknown waters and the possibility of environmental damage in case of grounding. Therefore the navigation crew of an arriving ship must be provided with an unambiguous presentation, based on human factors knowledge, of the courses designated by the remote pilot. Suggested research would show if the 3-D chart could provide such a system.

References

Porathe, T. (2006). 3-D Nautical Charts and Safe Navigation. Mälardalen Univerity Dissertations No. 27: Västerås.

In this work-in-progress we present some ideas and findings involving map design and human performance. Satellites has once and for all automated geographic positioning and resulted in a plethora of map applications, not only in professional transportation but also in the private sphere, in cars and even for street use in mobile phones. But many people have problems using the traditional bird's-eye view maps. The maze experiment presented here show that an egocentric ("out of the window") view of the map results in faster decision making and fewer errors. Can this also address some of the human-out-of-the-loop problems of navigation automation?

This paper presents a research project suggesting the use of real-time 3D visualization techniques normally used in simulation environments as a navigation aid onboard ships. Based on a threedimensional geographical database the surrounding world is presented in a “bridge-eye perspective” with navigational information such as own track, other ships in the vicinity and their tracks, water depth and radar echoes integrated in a single display. The integrated display suggested, acts as a complement to traditional electronic charts. The main objective is to lessen the cognitive load of high-speed craft pilots.

Purpose: A new method of measuring visibility taking context into account introduced by Alexander Wertheim has been validated in this study. The purpose was to see if a simple and practical technique could render robust and useful quantitatively measurable results. Methods: An ordinary traffic sign, placed against different backgrounds, was used as a target. Subjects were told to fixate the sign and then slowly deviate with their gaze until they could no longer see the sign in the corner of their eye. This angle was then used as an index for conspicuity. A simple paper and pen method was tested as well as a computer based method. Results: Results for the paper and pen method showed low variance among subjects and a clear correlation between the conspicuity index and intuitive judgments of the visibility of the signs against different backgrounds. For the computer based method the variability was higher but the results still significant between the two groups of dynamic versus static signs. Conclusions: The conclusion is that the conspicuity index method is a simple and useful method that renders quantitative measurements of the visibility of targets taken context into account.

This paper compares two different forms of representations that communicate geographic information to the mariner: the sailing direction and the chart. The sailing direction with its narrative, sequential, description of the world from a natural, surface, perspective, and the chart with its static and synthetic bird’s eye view of the world. Both are historically examples of successful mediated communication. Today they may become the starting point of new types of dynamic, virtual reality media, helping the mariner to safer navigation.