Development and Evaluation of a Tangible Terrain Representation System for Highway Route Planning

In recent years, mixed or/and augmented reality, which aims to integrate virtual space with real space, has received a significant amount of attention in research and development. In particular, the concept of a tangible interface is an interesting research area in this growing field of study. This paper develops and evaluates a tangible terrain representation system (TTRS), a tangible interface that recognizes the terrain in 3 dimensions and provides a more efficient approach to highway route planning and design. The developed system represents a terrain surface by controlling the shape of a stretchable screen using 64 actuators (8 × 8) and by projecting an aerial photograph on a screen. In applying TTRS to highway route planning, the user establishes control points using a magnetic positioning device and projects the image of a highway alignment on the TTRS. The developed system was evaluated by comparing its usability to an alternative system (virtual reality-based visual 3-D representation) using a group of evaluators at Miyagi University, Japan. The paper concludes that TTRS is an effective tool for terrain representation and highway route planning and design.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/10939687
• Authors:
  • Makanae, Koji
  • Dawood, Nashwan
• Publication Date: 2009-4

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 225-235
• Serial:
  • Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering
  • Volume: 24
  • Issue Number: 3
  • Publisher: Blackwell Publishing
  • ISSN: 1093-9687
  • Serial URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-8667

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Highway engineering; Highway planning; Planning and design; Terrain evaluation; Virtual reality
• Uncontrolled Terms: Highway alignment
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I20: Design and Planning of Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01124790
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 25 2009 7:38AM