A vision driven wayfinding simulation system based on the architectural features perceived in the office environment

Abstract

Human wayfinding in the built environment is extensively investigated in the last 50 years. One major aspect of the outcome is the decision made on the egresses based on the information perceived during the wayfinding. Information acquired of the environment could be categorized into several types, namely the verbal (information obtained from the reception, staff members, etc.), the graphic (map of the environment, signage showing the location or pointing to certain location, etc.), the architectural (entrances, stairs, corridors, etc.), and the spatial (spatial relationship of objects in the environment). Early analyses of indoor wayfinding suggested that signage and colour codes could provide landmarks, but the addition of these cues after construction can be futile. This suggests that, architectural information has a significant influence on individual’ s decision making. However, inmost researches, the function of the architectural information was underestimated -- it was often treated as the constraint of the architectural spaces. The presented research aims at developing of an agent-based system that can find certain destination in a virtual office building environment using artificial vision and cognition based on the architectural features in this built environment. During the wayfinding, this agent’ s egress choices follows an estimated model that based on experimental data with real human. Before running the experiments with real humans, pre-experiments were conducted to investigate the conditions for vision research using standard LCD monitors. The thresholds obtained in the pre-experiments for lighting in the virtual environment and for the testing environment served as input to the development of the following experiments. In the first experiment subjects were asked to make choices between two egresses in a sequence of isolated convex rooms. The architectural features of these rooms and of the egresses were varied systematically. The room features included: size and colour; while the egress features were: colour, distance, angle and width. From the collected data a preference function was estimated on egress choice given the architectural features. In the second experiment the assignment was to find the destination and then return to the start in a virtual building. Subjects executed three different assignments given different locations for the destination and the start, and every assignment was repeated two to three times subsequently. Each subject’ s routes in the experiments were recorded. From these routes search strategies used for wayfinding were determined, namely: Orientation Based, Architectural Features Based, Boundary Based, Random Choice, Minimum rooms and Shortest Distance. A preference function was estimated for the next room choice, based upon the architectural features of the current room, and the given familiarity of the environment. The implemented agent uses a simplified version of the virtual building model. This simplified version only includes those architectural elements and features that are relevant for vision driven navigation, i.e. the type of egress, egress colour, egress width, room colour and room size. Room colour is converted into three levels of grey. The agent’ s wayfinding behaviour is validated with the hit ratio, the average visit frequency of each room, and the average total number of rooms visited, respectively. The agent-based simulation system developed in not only an interpretation of the empirical findings obtained from the research, but it is also applicable for testing and evaluation purposes in architectural design problems. After certain transformations, a CAD model of an office environment can be presented to the simulation system as input. By setting the wayfinding task, the designed agent can be employed to predict how individuals may behave in this office environment in reality. This helps the architects, with regard to wayfinding efficiency and space utility, to improve their design