When I was in the Navy as an Officer of the Deck (OOD), I used to be able to visually measure distances on flat water in the range of ~500 yards to a mile within a few tens of yards because I had an internal sense of how big objects were and how they would look at those ranges. This was because I constantly had to measure ranges on radars and via moboards[0] when I was a OOD-in-training and so I learned quickly how to measure distances visually.
I also learned how to estimate how a ship was moving in ports and transit canals and how to adjust that using engines simply by looking around, much like you can adjust how you walk on a surface depending on senses from your whole body about what type of surface it is, how stable it is, etc. On gravel, most people can sense a bit of slippage as they walk from their feet, they might sense their body alignment from feet to head moving slightly due to that slippage, etc. and all those senses are used to tell "I need to slow down here" or whatever. For ships, you get an idea for what direction the bow and stern are moving, how they relate to your control angles, how that relates to what you see around you, and also integrates your body senses, because your body is a finely-tuned acceleration sensing machine.
Anyways, I wish I were still an OOD today, because I would try and create some tools like this that would help me there. Even this anklet itself would have been helpful when I was on duty, to tell me when the helmsman was asleep!
> For ships, you get an idea for what direction the bow and stern are moving
I wouldn't've thought of this, but of course that's critical to know on a ship. And it's certainly something outside of standard human experience, since we're small enough in that dimension to not have to worry about the difference in movement between our front and rear sides. The fact that you were able to gain an intuitive feel for this highlights how adaptable the human brain is.
It’s a useful nano superpower, though. It’s quite often that I use it to pick the right direction to head without having to get out a map on my phone, or other such cheat.
As the parent comment mentions, there are times when it is tricky. I often emerge from one of several exits from an unfamiliar London Underground station and have to spend a few minutes orientating myself. Often the fastest way is to just look for one of those maps they put in glass cabinets and figure it out from the shape of the road junctions.
It‘s a planned city, but not with a grid, instead it’s fan-shaped, even more pronounced than Versailles.