Uplift: A Tangible and Immersive Tabletop System for Casual Collaborative Visual Analytics

SpatialTouch: Exploring Spatial Data Visualizations in Cross-Reality

We propose and study a novel cross-reality environment that seamlessly integrates a monoscopic 2D surface (an interactive screen with touch and pen input) with a stereoscopic 3D space (an augmented reality HMD) to jointly host spatial data visualizations. This innovative approach combines the best of two conventional methods of displaying and manipulating spatial 3D data, enabling users to fluidly explore diverse visual forms using tailored interaction techniques. Providing such effective 3D data exploration techniques is pivotal for conveying its intricate spatial structures-often at multiple spatial or semantic scales-across various application domains and requiring diverse visual representations for effective visualization. To understand user reactions to our new environment, we began with an elicitation user study, in which we captured their responses and interactions. We observed that users adapted their interaction approaches based on perceived visual representations, with natural transitions in spatial awareness and actions while navigating across the physical surface. Our findings then informed the development of a design space for spatial data exploration in cross-reality. We thus developed cross-reality environments tailored to three distinct domains: for 3D molecular structure data, for 3D point cloud data, and for 3D anatomical data. In particular, we designed interaction techniques that account for the inherent features of interactions in both spaces, facilitating various forms of interaction, including mid-air gestures, touch interactions, pen interactions, and combinations thereof, to enhance the users' sense of presence and engagement. We assessed the usability of our environment with biologists, focusing on its use for domain research. In addition, we evaluated our interaction transition designs with virtual and mixed-reality experts to gather further insights. As a result, we provide our design suggestions for the cross-reality environment, emphasizing the interaction with diverse visual representations and seamless interaction transitions between 2D and 3D spaces.

MobiTangibles: Enabling Physical Manipulation Experiences of Virtual Precision Hand-Held Tools' Miniature Control in VR

Realistic simulation for miniature control interactions, typically identified by precise and confined motions, commonly found in precision hand-held tools, like calipers, powered engravers, retractable knives, etc., are beneficial for skill training associated with these kinds of tools in virtual reality (VR) environments. However, existing approaches aiming to simulate hand-held tools' miniature control manipulation experiences in VR entail prototyping complexity and require expertise, posing challenges for novice users and individuals with limited resources. Addressing this challenge, we introduce MobiTangibles-proxies for precision hand-held tools' miniature control interactions utilizing smartphone-based magnetic field sensing. MobiTangibles passively replicate fundamental miniature control experiences associated with hand-held tools, such as single-axis translation and rotation, enabling quick and easy use for diverse VR scenarios without requiring extensive technical knowledge. We conducted a comprehensive technical evaluation to validate the functionality of MobiTangibles across diverse settings, including evaluations for electromagnetic interference within indoor environments. In a user-centric evaluation involving 15 participants across bare hands, VR controllers, and MobiTangibles conditions, we further assessed the quality of miniaturized manipulation experiences in VR. Our findings indicate that MobiTangibles outperformed conventional methods in realism and fatigue, receiving positive feedback.

Analyzing User Behaviour Patterns in a Cross-Virtuality Immersive Analytics System

Recent work in immersive analytics suggests benefits for systems that support work across both 2D and 3D data visualizations, i.e., cross-virtuality analytics systems. Here, we introduce HybridAxes, an immersive visual analytics system that enables users to conduct their analysis either in 2D on desktop monitors or in 3D within an immersive AR environment - while enabling them to seamlessly switch and transfer their graphs between modes. Our user study results show that the cross-virtuality sub-systems in HybridAxes complement each other well in helping the users in their data-understanding journey. We show that users preferred using the AR component for exploring the data, while they used the desktop to work on more detail-intensive tasks. Despite encountering some minor challenges in switching between the two virtuality modes, users consistently rated the whole system as highly engaging, user-friendly, and helpful in streamlining their analytics processes. Finally, we present suggestions for designers of cross-virtuality visual analytics systems and identify avenues for future work.

Design Patterns for Situated Visualization in Augmented Reality

Situated visualization has become an increasingly popular research area in the visualization community, fueled by advancements in augmented reality (AR) technology and immersive analytics. Visualizing data in spatial proximity to their physical referents affords new design opportunities and considerations not present in traditional visualization, which researchers are now beginning to explore. However, the AR research community has an extensive history of designing graphics that are displayed in highly physical contexts. In this work, we leverage the richness of AR research and apply it to situated visualization. We derive design patterns which summarize common approaches of visualizing data in situ. The design patterns are based on a survey of 293 papers published in the AR and visualization communities, as well as our own expertise. We discuss design dimensions that help to describe both our patterns and previous work in the literature. This discussion is accompanied by several guidelines which explain how to apply the patterns given the constraints imposed by the real world. We conclude by discussing future research directions that will help establish a complete understanding of the design of situated visualization, including the role of interactivity, tasks, and workflows.

An Architecture for Collaborative Terrain Sketching with Mobile Devices

3D terrains used in digital animations and videogames are typically created by several collaborators with a single-user application, which constrains them to update the shared terrain from their PCs, using a turn-taking strategy. Moreover, collaborators have to visualize the terrain through 2D views, confusing novice users when conceiving its shape in 3D. In this article, we describe an architecture for collaborative applications, which allow co-located users to sketch a terrain using their mobile devices concurrently. Two interaction modes are supplied: the standard one and an augmented reality-based mode, which helps collaborators understand the 3D terrain shape. Using the painting with brushesparadigm, users can modify the terrain while visualizing its shape evolution through the camera of their devices. Work coordination is promoted by enriching the 3D space with each collaborator’s avatar, which provides awareness information about identity, location, and current action. We implemented a collaborative application from this architecture that was tested by groups of users, who assessed its hedonic and pragmatic qualities in both interaction modes and compared them with the qualities of a similar Web terrain editor. The results showed that the augmented reality mode of our prototype was considered more attractive and usable by the participants.