Figure 1: Top-down (left) and Bird's-eye (right) panoramic overviews of a laboratory room.

In this collaboration with Alessandro Mulloni from Graz University of Technology, we investigate 360° panoramas as overviews to support users in the task of locating objects in the surrounding environment. Panoramas are typically visualized as rectangular photographs, but this does not provide clear cues for physical directions in the environment. In this paper, we conduct a series of studies with three different shapes: Frontal, Top-Down and Bird's Eye; the last two shapes are chosen because they provide a clearer representation of the spatial mapping between panorama and environment. Our results show that good readability of the panorama is most important and that a clear representation of the spatial mapping plays a secondary role. This paper is the first to provide understanding on how users exploit 360° panoramic overviews to locate objects in the surrounding environment and how different design factors can affect user performance.

Figure 2: Frontal perspective panoramic overview of a laboratory room.