Psychological Research on Advanced Terrain Representation: Formatting the Visual Material

摘要

This report describes an empirical investigation which was done to guide the development of a videodisc based system that will provide free travel from a ground-level perspective within a simulated environment. The Advanced Terrain Representation (ATR) system will be based on a generalization of surrogate travel. The purpose of conducting this psychological research was to provide the bounds of perceptual acceptability for guiding subsequent technological development. Ideally, ATR would present a complete and veridical representation of the natural tactical environment; however, because of storage constraints inherent in videodisc technology, the amount of information which can be presented is limited. Psychological research was conducted to help produce a compelling, pedagogically effective system within these constraints. The primary research question was as follows: what is the most efficient way to represent a large piece of terrain in a perceptually informative fashion. A short summary of the findings indicate that the camera lens angle at which a picture is taken drives the estimation of distances from the observer to a point in the picture, but not the distance between two points in a photograph; the acceptable jump size is a function of the type of terrain; and the number of acceptable viewing and travel directions are narrowly constrained.