A study on the recognition of road plan shapes in urban space: Experiments on the interpretation of corners in real spaces and CG perspectives

We performed experiments using real space and Computer Graphic perspectives to investigate the characteristics and tendencies of the recognition of road shapes from the perspective view to the ground plan. In the real space experiment, a subject is asked to draw a sequence of road shape planes from the range that he can see from specified corners along a predetermined path. Afterwards, the subject is asked to recreate a complete map of the entire path from memory. Finally, the subject is asked to repeat the experiment but this time without having to recreate the small sketches, only the complete map. The computer graphic experiment asks subjects to choose from a series of options the road shape plane that is equal to a computer graphic perspective displayed on a screen. The result of the experiment shows that if the subject is distant from the center of the road convergence point, his perception of the road shape is altered. Furthermore the results show that there is a tendency for the user to perceive road shapes to be at angles that are closer to 90 degrees from the direction of forward motion.