Anyone who has ever experienced three-dimensional
(3D) interfaces will agree that navigating in a 3D world
is not a trivial task. The user interface of traditional 3D
browsers provides simple navigation tools that allow the
user to modify the camera parameters such as orientation,
position and focal. Using these tools, it is frequent that, after
some movements, the user is lost in the virtual 3D space
and usually tries to restart from the beginning.
This paper presents how the 3D navigation problem is
addressed in the context of the CyberNet project [2]. Our
underlying principle is to help the user navigate by adapting
the navigation tool to the virtual world. We feel that the
navigation schemes provided by the 3D browsers are too
generic for some specific 3D tools and we have developed
adaptive navigation features that are dependent on the 3D
metaphor used for visualizing the information and on the
user's task.
