Navigational soundscaping

摘要

A navigational system generates audio cues that are perceived in a three-dimensional space, allowing users to aurally perceive the locations of mapped objects such as landmarks. The audio cues can be produced alone, or in some applications, produced in conjunction with a visual navigational map display to improve the overall efficacy of the system. The audio navigation system includes a positioning system to determine the location of a user, a memory to store hierarchically-organized information about one or more objects, and a processor to render an audio signal based on the hierarchically-organized information. The audio signal is rendered into an audio space corresponding to the user, so as to allow user perception of the location of at least one of the objects relative to the location of the user. The objects may be landmarks in the vicinity of the user.

主权项

1. An apparatus comprising:
a positioning system configured to determine a first location; a memory configured to store hierarchically-organized information associated with one or more landmarks, wherein the hierarchically-organized information is organized by a plurality of categories and a plurality of sub-categories, wherein a first audio icon of the hierarchically-organized information corresponds to a first audio sound concatenated with a second audio sound, wherein the first audio sound is associated with a first category of the plurality of categories, and wherein the second audio sound is associated with a first sub-category of the plurality of sub-categories; and a processor configured to generate a first audio signal based on the first audio icon and the first location to enable user perception of a first landmark location of a first landmark relative to the first location, the first audio icon associated with the first landmark.