Snap2Diverse: Coordinating Information Visualizations and

Virtual Environments

Nicholas F. Polys, Chris North,

Doug A. Bowman, Andrew Ray,

Maxim Moldenhauer, Chetan Dandekar

Department of Computer Science

Center for Human Computer Interaction

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

SPIE Visualization and Data Analysis 2004

Problem: Integrated Information Spaces

Researchers, designers, students, and analysts need to explore, search, recognize, and compare patterns across a wide variety of data types and applications.

Some representations are better suited to different data types and questions:– Abstract information -> Information Visualization

– Perceptual or spatial information -> Virtual Environments

User Problem:

• Perceptual, environmental phenomena alone do not guarantee accurate mental models

• Interfaces for information and controls are consistently under-represented and poorly integrated in VEs

Developer Problem:

• Increasingly, objects rendered in VEs have metadata and annotations associated with them. These may change over time.

• Lacking design guidelines and information architectures for efficient management of Integrated Information Spaces

Approach: Information-Rich Virtual Environments (IRVEs)

IRVEs are at the union of VE and Info Vis:perceptual + abstract information is simultaneously accessible and linked

• Define the issues and the task space for this class of applications

• Define the design space to solve and support them• Apply usability engineering methods to identify

tradeoffs and enumerate design guidelines

Some Research Questions

Where, how, and when should the abstract information be displayed in the VE?

In what form should the information be displayed?

How can interrelationships between the spatial and abstract information be represented?

Bowman, Doug, North, Chris, Chen, J., Polys, N., Pyla, P., Yilmaz, U., (2003) “Information-Rich Virtual Environments: Theory, Tools, and Research Agenda”. Proc. Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST)

IRVEs and Multiple Coordinated Views

Users can index to and from perceptual and abstract information through ‘brushing and linking’. Snap2Diverse uses RMI and RemoteSharedMemory to link VE and InfoVis toolkits:

• DIVERSE is an multi-platform, open-source VR toolkit [diverse.sourceforge.net]

• Snap-Together Visualization is a free, componentized toolkit for information visualization [infovis.cs.vt.edu]

Snap2Diverse IRVE

• Multiple-Views approach:• Abstract info in separate Infovis apps• hanging picture, HUD• Brushing and linking

• Layout location: display-fixed location; separate, opaque application; does not reside within the scenegraph.

• Layout Association: Hanging Picture is visually implicit; not localized in the environment; brushing and linking.

Snap

Video

Event Support

Diverse as a Snap-able component:– Unique data record Ids for 2 way communication– Event communication (e.g. select, load)

Snap Coordination

Manager

É

Component 1

CAVE Adapter (RMI Messaging

Events)

DIVERSEAtomView application

Java Component

Adapter Component 2

Application: Cheminformatics

Usability Evaluation Summary

• Snap2Diverse as tested is:– high-threshold for learnability– high-ceiling for functionality

• Users were able to brush & link to solve tasks• In most cases, users chose suitable visualizations to

recover the information required for the finding and comparing tasks

• Given a choice, users tended to recover information from the VE rather than the InfoVis window

• Xwand is a moded interface and switching between 2D and 3D navigation and selection was not intuitive.

Lessons Learned

Simple events provide ‘glue’ to support complex functionality:

• Benefits of exposing VE scenegraphs to external events; enabling technology must be extended

• Benefits of composable and integrated information spaces

• Designers must consider tasks and the knowledge required for completion (ie Sutcliffe and Faraday, Shneiderman)

Current Work: PathSim

http://www.vbi.vt.edu/~pathsim

Paper to be presented at Web3D 2004

Polys, N., Bowman, D., North, C., Laubenbacher, R., Duca, K., (2004). “PathSim Visualizer: An Information-Rich Virtual Environment for Systems Biology” Proceedings of Web3D 2004, ACM SIGGRAPH.

Future Work

• IRVE Testbed construction• Controlled experiments and usability evaluations to

identify the significant design dimensions and techniques for integrated information spaces.

• Identify tradeoffs, guidelines, and design patterns for this class of problems.

• Propose future X3D standard components:– Annotation (labels, metadata)

– Compositing (HUD, ApplicationTexture)

Thanks and Happy Hacking!

Nicholas F. Polys

npolys@vt.edu

Department of Computer Science

Center for Human Computer Interaction

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University