Pawth

Pawth is a pet-centered navigation app that identifies suitable walking routes based on both canine profiles and surrounding environmental conditions.

Preliminary surveys and interviews with dog owners helped determine the factors that most strongly influence their dogs’ walking experiences, including land-surface temperature, shade coverage, pedestrian density, and walking distance. Furthermore, every dog experiences the same environment differently. Breed, age, size, and activity level all shape a pet’s tolerance for distance, heat, crowded spaces, and other environmental conditions. Yet conventional navigation systems primarily optimize for human priorities such as distance and travel time, rarely considering a dog’s physical comfort or individual needs.

Several technical layers support Pawth. Landsat thermal imagery estimates land-surface temperatures across different road segments, while NDVI derived from satellite imagery serves as an indicator of vegetation and shade coverage. Population-flow data provide estimates of pedestrian density at different times. A personalized recommendation model integrates these environmental variables and adjusts their relative importance according to each dog’s characteristics.

Users begin by creating a profile containing information such as breed, age, size, preferred walking duration, and activity level. These attributes are then combined with geographic and environmental data to evaluate possible paths and recommend more suitable alternatives. During live navigation, a normal mode provides conventional directions for owners, while a dog-vision mode presents the journey from the pet’s perspective by visualizing changing conditions and indicating when adjustments or rest may be appropriate.

After completing a walk, owners can record and share their route experiences through comments and ratings. Beyond general reviews, users can report route-specific observations such as unexpected crowds, insufficient shade, available water facilities, or whether their dogs appeared comfortable along particular sections. These firsthand experiences provide other owners with practical context, creating a community-based layer of information alongside the app’s quantitative analysis.

Pawth transforms overlooked factors into practical navigation decisions. Rather than simply guiding users toward a destination, it provides a more individualized understanding of how pets may experience each journey, making pet-friendly navigation measurable, responsive, and genuinely centered on dogs’ needs.