Navigation and locomotion in virtual worlds via flight into hand-held miniatures

This paper describes the use of a World-in-Miniature (WIM) as a navigation and locomotion device in immersive virtual environments. The WIM is a hand-held miniature graphical representation of the virtual environment, similar to a map cube. When the user moves an object in the WIM, the object simultaneously moves in the surrounding virtual environment. When the user moves an iconic representation of himself, he moves (flies) in the virtual environment. Flying the user in the full scale virtual world is confusing, because the user’s focus of attention is in the miniature, not in the full scale virtual world. We present the novel technique of flying the user into the miniature, providing perceptual and cognitive constancy when updating the viewpoint.