Developing a replication of a wayfinding study: From a large-scale real building to a virtual reality simulation

Abstract

Developing virtual reality (VR) simulations for replication of real-world studies in spatial cognition research is a tedious process, as numerous processes must be considered to achieve correspondence. In this chapter, we describe the develop-ment of a virtual model for a replication of a real-world study in the Seattle Cen-tral Library. The aim is to pragmatically report challenges and solutions in trans-lating real-world conditions of complex and large-scale buildings into virtual real-ity simulations. For this aim, the chapter focuses on three steps for development: modelling the virtual environment, optimizing the performance, and designing the human-environment interaction.