ThreeTopo: Focused Interactive Navigation for Multi-Pitch Rock Climbing

Paper Title

ThreeTopo: Focused Interactive Navigation for Multi-Pitch Rock Climbing

Publication Info

• Topic area: Human-computer interaction for outdoor sports navigation
• Keywords: Multi-pitch climbing, navigation tools, photogrammetry, spatial annotations, embodied computing, mobile interaction, route planning, high-focus activities, 3D modeling, augmented navigation

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing navigation resources for multi-pitch rock climbing, such as text descriptions, photos, and hand-drawn topos, are imprecise and prone to misinterpretation, leading to navigation errors that can result in serious accidents.
• Significance: Multi-pitch climbing requires accurate navigation due to the high risks associated with deviating from established routes. Improved tools could enhance safety, reduce accidents, and support climbers in building mental models of routes.
• Motivation and related work: Prior research in HCI has explored immersive simulations, sensing, and augmented reality for climbing, but has focused primarily on indoor or controlled environments. Outdoor multi-pitch climbing remains underexplored, particularly in terms of tools that address practical navigation challenges.

Solution

• Proposed approach: ThreeTopo, a mobile application integrating high-resolution photogrammetry models, spatially-anchored annotations, human-scale avatars, and adaptable one-handed interactions to support pre-climb planning and on-the-wall navigation.
• Novelty:
  1. High-fidelity vertical terrain models created using photogrammetry to provide precise visual representations of climbing routes.
  2. Multi-modal spatial annotations combining text, images, and 3D markers for critical route details.
  3. Human-scale avatars to support embodied understanding of route features and moves.
  4. One-handed camera controls and route sliders tailored for bandwidth-limited navigation during climbs.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Capture terrain using drone-based photogrammetry and optimize models for mobile devices.
  • Overlay spatial annotations and route paths on the 3D model using Blender and integrate them into a mobile interface.
  • Develop one-handed interaction techniques for camera navigation and route exploration.
  • Deploy the app to climbers for field testing and gather feedback through surveys and interviews.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • None of the climbers using ThreeTopo during the deployment went off-route, compared to 15% of climbers who went off-route using traditional resources.
  • Participants rated the app highly for accuracy, usability, and usefulness, with median scores in the "agree" or "strongly agree" range for most features.
• Advantage over baselines: ThreeTopo reduced navigation errors and improved climbers’ confidence and mental model-building compared to traditional guidebooks and topos.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Deployment to 16 climbers over 3 weeks, including surveys and interviews.
  • Validation of the terrain model’s accuracy and usability through Likert scale responses and free-text feedback.
  • Observations during expert climbing sessions showed changes in navigation decisions after using ThreeTopo.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Current implementation focuses on a single route, limiting scalability.
  • Fixed-width route paths may oversimplify areas with multiple valid options; future versions could include variable-width paths and branched alternatives.
  • Authoring workflows for 3D route descriptions need to be streamlined to support broader adoption.

Summary

ThreeTopo introduces a novel approach to multi-pitch climbing navigation by leveraging high-resolution photogrammetry, spatial annotations, and tailored mobile interactions. Field deployment demonstrated its ability to reduce navigation errors and improve climbers’ confidence in route finding. While the tool currently focuses on a single route, future work could expand its scalability, incorporate alternative route representations, and develop collaborative authoring workflows. This research highlights the potential for interactive tools to enhance safety and learning in climbing and other high-focus activities.