• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.57-67
• /
• 1997

The navigation of virtual space comes down to the manipulation of the virtual camera. The movement of the virtual cameras has 6 degrees of freedom. However, input devices such as mouses and joysticks are 2D. So, the movement of the camera that corresponds to the input device is 2D movement at the given moment. Therefore, the 3D movement of the camera can be implemented by means of the combination of 2D and 1D movements of the camera. Many of the virtual space navigation browser use several navigation modes to solve this problem. But, the criteria for distinguishing different modes are not clear, somed of the manipulations in each mode are repeated in other modes, and the kinesthetic correspondence of the input devices is often confusing. Hence the user has difficulty in making correct decisions when navigating the virtual space. To solve this problem, we use a single navigation metaphore in which different modes are organically integrated. In this paper we propose a helicopter pilot metaphor. Using the helicopter pilot metaphore means that the user navigates the virtual space like a pilot of a helicopter flying in space. In this paper, we distinguished six 2D movement spaces of the helicopter: (1) the movement on the horizontal plane, (2) the movement on the vertical plane,k (3) the pitch and yaw rotations about the current position, (4) the roll and pitch rotations about the current position, (5) the horizontal and vertical turning, and (6) the rotation about the target object. The six 3D movement spaces are visualized and displayed as a sequence of auxiliary windows. The user can select the desired movement space simply by jumping from one window to another. The user can select the desired movement by looking at the displaced 2D movement spaces. The movement of the camera in each movement space is controlled by the usual movements of the joystick.