Modeling Spatial Knowledge for Generating Verbal and Visual Route Directions

Challenges in the development of state-of-the-art navigation tools involve the synchronous generation of user-tailored natural language directions and accompanying graphical representations. Of particular interest is the combination of indoor and outdoor scenarios. We describe an architecture for simultaneously generating route directions and suitable visualizations of the navigational context for walking directions. We present a representation model for 3D environments, the spatial model, and a route representation format based on OpenGIS standards, aiming at an elegant and efficient way to support users with and without knowledge about the environment.

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