Geospatial access to lifelogging photos in virtual reality

Abstract

We present a virtual reality system for accessing geotagged photos taken with a lifelogging camera. Photos are spatially located on a world map that can be explored with a head-mounted display. Using a virtual reality headset allows users to easily and intuitively explore this large information space. Images are initially represented by icons but become visible once a user gets closer to a particular area of interest. While not suitable for all search tasks, this visualisation has benefits in situations where location plays a significant role; be it because the actual content is location-related or because the owner of the lifelog remembers and associates the related event with certain places. Likewise, our spatial representation of the data often implicitly reveals a temporal relationship, which can be helpful in the search process as well.