A PDA Interface for 3D Interaction with an Outdoor Robot

When looking at a coarse map of an unknown area, it is difficult to quickly orient and get a good feeling for the surrounding environment. This is especially true on a tiny Portable Digital Assistant (PDA), where it is difficult to grasp the extent of the entire map due to the small format. I therefore got the assignment to develop a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for a larger PDA and to take advantage of this new format. The GUI is used for interacting with Pluto, a mobile multi-purpose autonomous map-making scout robot. The purpose of this project is to investigate the use of 3D models to visualize the generated (2D) map. Another objective was to find out if video can be integrated into the GUI. The thesis covers the GUI design issues and the problems with implementing 3D and video on the given PDA. It also provides an evaluation of different tools for GUI development targeting PDAs and a brief evaluation of the implemented GUI. The implementation indicates that even a simple wire-frame model increases the understanding of the map considerably. The thesis can be used as a reference for the Pluto GUI project. Ett PDA-gränssnitt för 3D-interaktion med en utomhusgående robot