Merging video with maps for navigation

A new novel navigation system under development at Microsoft aims to tweak users' visual memory with carefully chosen video clips of a route. Developed with researchers from the University of Konstanz in Germany, the software creates video using 360-degree panoramic images of the street that are strung together. Such images have already been gathered by several different mapping companies for many roads around the world. The navigation system, tentatively called VideoMap, adjusts the speed of the video and the picture to highlight key areas along the route.

"What we wanted to do is build a system where we could give [drivers] those visual cues before they got into the car," says Billy Chen, a researcher in the MSN Advanced Engineering group. Ideally, he says, the driver would feel as if they've driven the route before, even if they've never been on those streets.

Videomap still provides written directions and a map with a highlighted route. But unlike existing software, such as Google Maps or MapQuest, the system also allows users to watch a video of their drive. The video slows down to highlight turns or speeds up to minimize the total length of the clip. Memorable landmarks are also highlighted, though at present the researchers have to select them from the video manually. "As we pass a landmark, the field of view will expand to encompass that landmark and create a landmark thumbnail [image]," Chen says. The video freezes on this image for a few seconds to imprint it in the driver's memory, so that they will recognize it during the drive.

An incredibly interesting idea that would be great to see on a pedestrian navigation system as well as vehicular one although I am not convinced on whether the scale of capturing the locations can be easily achieved nor that video can be the way to stimulate memory. It would still would be great to see this implemented however!