Perceptual Aspects of Symbol Shapes and Relations in 3D Aircraft Displays

Abstract

This report presents two experiments in the area of perspective aircraft displays. The focus was to understand symbolic and symbol relations in the 3D environment. In the first experiment, subjects' ability to distinguish five different aircraft symbol shapes was investigated together with the perception of their heading in the 3D space. The perspective used in this experiment was egocentric. The second experiment investigated the judgment of the spatial relation between an own-ship symbol and a target symbol. Thus, in this case the perspective was exocentric and two aspect angles were used for the camera position. Both experiments were carried out in non-dynamic scenarios. The display character was topographic with a superposed grid on the ground surface. The overall conclusion from the experiments is that judgments of azimuth and elevation are very difficult in these static scenarios. Also, symbol recognition of 3D pictorial symbols is problematic for complicated symbol shapes, depending on different appearances for various symbol headings in the 3D space.