İSTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY INSTITUDE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

1. İSTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY INSTITUDE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING SECTION URBAN DESIGN PROGRAM CULTURE AND URBAN FORM “VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT” (PERCEPTION OF OBJECTS IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT) Prof. Dr. Gülden ERKUT 502011452 SİNAN PEHLİVANOĞLU

2. CONTENTS: • I. VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT • 1.1. The Aim Of The Research • 1.2. The Meaning Of Virtual Environment • II. THE PROJECTS ABOUT VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT • 2.1. Real Time Rendering Of Urban Environments • 2.2. A Remote Rendering Pipeline • 2.3. An Exploration of a Virtual Environment For Testing Orientation and Memory For Objects

3. III. THE PILOT STUDY - EYUP • 3.1. Systematic of Research and Public Survey • 3.2. The Importance of Eyup Sultan • 3.3. The Public Survey Questions and Survey Form • 3.4. The Observation of The Objects In The Area • IV. RESULTS - CONCLUSION • 4.1. Results of Public Research • 4.2. Conclusion

4. METHODOLOGY DIAGRAM

5. I. VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT • 1.1. The Aim Of The Research • The aim of the research is, to investigate the roles of the objects in a place for orientation. The hypothesis is, the objects (buildings, signs, bus stops, etc.) in an area, helps people for orientation, finding way. • For proving this, the importance of virtual environment, the importance of the objects, orientation and some studies for virtual environment are inspected.

6. 1.2. The Meaning Of Virtual Environment • The term “virtual environment” is about the objects-signscapes in an area. These objects may be buildings, landmarks, dominants, signposts, traffic lights and bus stops. The importance of these objects depend on the perception of them by people in that area.

7. In large spaces, people are frequently required to move toward unseen goals and therefore they must plan their movements. To do so, spatial knowledge about the environment is required. Siegl and White (1975) and Pick and Lockman (1981) made the distinction between three levels of spatial knowledge; memorization of the main landmarks, integration of those landmarks into a path or a sensorimotor sequence (procedural or route knowledge), and elaboration of a survey-type representation where landmarks and paths are interconnected (configurational or survey knowledge). According to several authors, reproducing a familiar route requires no more than a route-type mental representation, whereas it is likely that taking a shortcut or selecting a new route is easier with a survey type mental representation. (Belingrad, L; Peruch,P.)

8. Virtual environment is important for movement, orientation and mental representation, but some objects in virtual environment cause complexity and obtrusiveness. Street graphics are good examples for this problem. They can be charming, but sometimes, they cause visual pollution to a community, enchanging or harming the image of a city. Virtual environment is important for modelling and rendering. Computer simulated three dimensional environments that people can interact with and explore in real time are popularly referred to as virtual reality or virtual environments.

9. II. THE PROJECTS ABOUT VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT • 2.1. Real-Time Rendering of Urban Environments • This project aims at the creation of an integrated solution for modeling and real-time visualization of large and medium-scale urban environments. This system can be the basis for applications like traffic and driving simulation, architectural simulations, information visualization and computer games. In the planning process it is useful to simulate the environment before changes in the real city are made.

10. In this context three-dimensional computer simulation gained immense popularity, not only because it produces appealing graphics, but it is a more adequate representation for a three-dimensional environment and easier to understand than conventional 2D plans. Traffic simulation, visual impact analysis and information visualization for urban information systems are applications in the local planning area that would all profit from our framework. • The main scope of the project is: • Modeling of large-scale urban environments for real-time rendering • New rendering algorithms for urban walkthroughs based on visibility culling and image-based rendering .

11. 2.2. The Remote Rendering Pipeline • Improvement of network and rendering performance in distributed virtual environments. Users can meet in a simulated world for social exchange, collaboration (computer supported cooperative work) and recreation. The geometric description of this world (geometry database) must be available on every participating computer to allow rapid image generation. Simple solutions (such as found in computer games) often involve off-line distribution of the database (e. g. on CD-ROM) or stall the image generation until download is complete. The central problem is that the network is simply too slow.

12. The approach of the project is, the remote rendering pipeline is a concept to improve the availability of large geometry databases. It combines new methods in geometric modeling, network protocols and 3-D image generation to build a virtual environment that allows a large number of users to share a virtual world without waiting for slow network transmission.

13. 2.3. An Exploration of A Virtual Environment For Testing Orientation and Memory For Objects • In this project, active participants explored a desktop three-dimensional computer simulated environment, whereas observer participants watched the screen passively. During the course of exploration, it was asked to all participants to remember as many objects as possible. In a test, all participants were asked to indicate the direction of test locations from a position where these were not directly visible. The plan view is like the plan in figure 1, which is used by Wilson, Foreman, Gillet and Stanton; it contained the same features but two buildings and 24 test objects were added to it.

15. The hypothesis of this study was, the active group would show better performance, but the test results of the two groups were found to be statistically equivalent; there were no significant difference between the active and passive exploration groups for memorizing objects. • The results of this study suggest that the failure to find a beneficial effect on orientation of active exploration in a virtual environment is not due to high attention to the spatial aspect of the task in the passive condition.

16. III. THE PILOT STUDY - EYUP • 3.1. Systematic For Pilot Study • For pilot study, photography and public survey is used for understanding how objects effect the orientation of people in the area. (Eyup Sultan) • Observation and behavioral mapping is a method for describing what people do in the designed environment. It’s an indirect approach compared to the methods that have relied on direct user involvement in seeking design-related information. Direct participation sees the users as “subjects” who have something to say about their environmental preferences and actions; this alternative approach views people as “objects” and observes their periodic behavior as a basis for making design decisions. (Canter,1970)

17. Observation of the objects in the area is important for orientation. For example, a pedestrian mall is a subject for further analysis to determine the use of the benches located on the street edge of the sidewalks, and the effect of staged events and weather condition on their use. Also, photographic simulations have been widely used to determine user’s preferences. Signscapes are examples for this. • Photography is one of the many tools available to the researcher studying behavior in the environment. Although visually observable, behavior is a small part of the complex interaction between people and their environment. (Sanoff, H)

18. 3.2. The Importance Of Eyup Sultan • Eyüp Sultan is a historical place in Istanbul, it has historical and regional importance. It is beside Golden Horn. The importance of Eyup comes from Ebu Eyyub El Ensari. When II. Mehmed captured Istanbul, he found his grave and decided to build a monument for Ebu Eyyub El Ensari, and Eyup Sultan Mosque was built on the 15th century. • Eyup Sultan Mosque, gave the place a religious identity. New Emperors of Ottoman were taken to Eyup Sultan for greeting the people and to give thanks to God. Many of the important statesmen were buried in Eyup, and there are a lot of tombs and mosques in Eyup Sultan.

19. 3.3. The Public Survey Questions and Survey Form • Public survey questions • 1)The 5 objects effecting the person for orientation in the place, and lining them up from to the most, to the least object. • 2)As an example, leading the people to somewhere (for ex. Pier Loti or Eyüp Sultan Mosque) and asking them what objects do they use for finding their way. • 3)Asking the people that if they are residents of Eyüp, or visitors. This question will help to find out that if living in a place does matter for using objects better for orientation than the visitors or not. • This public survey will be made with 5 residents and 5 visitors and the results will be compared to find out the effect of objects for orientation.

20. 34. The Observation of The Objects In The Area • Eyüp Sultan, is an environment full of different types of objects. (landmarks, dominants etc.) Eyup Sultan Mosque is in the center of Eyup. There are many trees, benches and pedestrian ways beside the mosque. Also, there’s a pond too. Many tourists come to visit Eyup Sultan, especially in the weekends. People from other parts of Istanbul, people from other cities of Turkey and foreign tourists visit Eyup Sultan, the mosques and the tombs. Mosques and tombs are important monuments. • There’s also Pierre Loti Cafe on the hill beside the mosque and the tombs. There’s a pedestrian way to the hill, but there’s no signscape to find the way. But this place is an important touristic place, it has a very pleasant Golden Horn view.

21. Eyüp Sultan Mosque

22. The pond and the other religious buildings

23. Shops and pedlars

24. Signscape and police station for orientation to Pierre Loti

25. The way to Pierre Loti

26. The stairs leading to Pierre Loti

27. IV. RESULTS - CONCLUSION • 4.1. Results • The public survey is made by 10 people. 5 of them were residents of Eyup and other 5 were visitors. As we consider the results of the questions: Residents: In the first question, which objects do people observe for orientation, and 5 of them were asked. But I observed that many people don’t pay attention to the objects in the area. They find their way, but they can hardly tell what objects helped them for orientation. This problem is also for the visitors.

28. For the results, I compared the answers and observed the most important objects for orientation for the residents: • 1.object: Eyup Sultan Mosque • 2.Shops around the mosque • 3.Other tomb buildings • 4.Pedestrian ways • 5.Trees • Other objects were, pedlars, benches, pond and the square. • The second question was, which objects do people observe for orientation to Pierre Loti Hill. For the results, the small police station on the corner, the guards, the walls and the stairs helped them for orientation to Pierre Loti.

29. Visitors: • It’s observed that, at weekends, soldiers on leave and people for praying, worship and votive offering, visit this place mostly. • For the first question: • 1. Eyup Sultan Mosque • 2. Other tomb buildings • 3. Shops around the mosque • 4. Pond • 5. Trees • For the second question, the visitors mostly use the police station on the corner, the walls, the “Eyüp Sultan Çarşısı” signscape near the police station, the pedlars and the tombs for orientation to Pierre Loti Hill.

30. 4.2. Conclusion • So, these results show that, the objects in an area, help people for orientation; but there’s no exact difference between the residents and the visitors of a place for observing objects for orientation. The people who knows that place and the people who are strangers, both use the same objects for orientation. It’s difficult for the visitors to find way at first, but when asking way, and finding way, they use exactly the same objects with the residents for orientation.

31. REFERENCES: Paul N. Vilson, Active Exploration Of A Virtual Environment Does Not Promote Orientation Or Memory For Objects, Environment and Behavior, November 1999 Jack L. Nasar, Xiadong Hong; Visual Preferences In Urban Signscapes, Environment and Behavior, September 1999 Loic Belingrad, Patrick Peruch; Mental Representation and The Spatial Scructure Of Virtual Environments, Environment and Behavior, May 2000 Henry Sanoff; Visual Research Methods In Design, New York, 1991 www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research