Metaphor-aware 3D navigation

Anyone who has ever experienced three-dimensional (3D) interfaces will agree that navigating in a 3D world is not a trivial task. The user interface of traditional 3D browsers provides simple navigation tools that allow the user to modify the camera parameters such as orientation, position and focal. Using these tools, it is frequent that, after some movements, the user is lost in the virtual 3D space and usually tries to restart from the beginning. We present how the 3D navigation problem is addressed in the context of the CyberNet project (Abel et al., 2000). Our underlying principle is to help the user navigate by adapting the navigation tool to the virtual world. We feel that the navigation schemes provided by the 3D browsers are too generic for some specific 3D tools and we have developed adaptive navigation features that are dependent on the 3D metaphor used for visualizing the information and on the user's task.