Better Routing
Program aims to give directions as a human would
By Lisa Scanlon

Web sites such as MapQuest are good at getting people from point A to point B, but their instructions are not usually as easy to follow as those given by someone familiar with a particular route. Gary Look, an MIT graduate student in computer science and electrical engineering, set out with his colleagues to create a program that generates more-colloquial--and useful--directions. His software uses landmarks to identify where travelers should turn, to confirm that they are moving in the right direction, and to describe the physical characteristics of their routes. "It gives directions in terms of how people give directions," Look says.

To test his program, Look built a system that generates walking directions for the second floor and parts of other floors of the Stata Center. The guide generates written directions using a database of paths, places, and landmarks. Its use of landmarks makes directions more concise. Rather than describe every twist and turn along the way or spell out precise distances, for instance, the directions might read, "You will see a lounge on your left; walk toward the lounge."

Look hopes that by the end of this summer, he will have expanded the guide to cover the entire building. Longer term, he imagines that used in conjunction with Global Positioning System-enabled PDAs, the software could cover entire cities and might even remind people of things to do when they're in particular areas.