Introduction:What Landmarks Are, and Why They Are Important - Landmarks: GIScience for Intelligent Services - page 1

Chapter 1
Introduction: What Landmarks Are,
and Why They Are Important

Abstract Landmarks, by their pure existence, structure environments. They form
cognitive anchors, markers, or reference points for orientation, wayfinding and
communication. They appear in our sketches, in descriptions of meeting points or
routes, and as the remarkable objects of an environment in tourist brochures. With all
their significance for spatial cognition and communication, landmarks pose a major
challenge for artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. So far, research
aiming for intelligent interaction design has suffered from a lack of understanding
and formal modelling of landmarks. Here we will clarify our words' meaning and
draw some boundaries of our discussion, in preparation for integrating landmarks in
artificial intelligence applications.

1.1 What Landmarks Are

What hasn't been called a landmark so far! We speak of a landmark development ,a
landmark victory ,a landmark court decision ,a landmark resort ,a natural landmark ,
call a skyscraper a landmark ,ortheEiffelTower(Fig. 1.1 ) , or the Sydney Opera
House. The term is not only used as an attribute, but also as a name such as
the Landmark Tower , Japan's tallest building , 1 or Landmark , a rural settlement
in Manitoba, Canada . 2 Wikipedia 3 defines a landmark “including anything that is
easily recognizable, such as a monument, building, or other structure.” Particularly
useful for the purpose of this topic is the reference to recognition in this definition.
Cognition and embodied experience will play a significant role in our exploration