Virtual Lenses as Embodied Tools for Immersive Analytics
This work addresses a gap in immersive analytics tools for domain-specific 3D data visualization, though it is incremental as it adapts existing lens concepts to a new environment.
The paper tackled the lack of virtual lenses for 3D immersive visualization by designing graspable, interactive lenses inspired by real-world magnifying glasses, resulting in a system for 3D sonar data analysis where informal feedback from over a hundred users indicated the interaction was easy to use for finding hidden wrecks.
Interactive lenses are useful tools for supporting the analysis of data in different ways. Most existing lenses are designed for 2D visualization and are operated using standard mouse and keyboard interaction. On the other hand, research on virtual lenses for novel 3D immersive visualization environments is scarce. Our work aims to narrow this gap in the literature. We focus particularly on the interaction with lenses. Inspired by natural interaction with magnifying glasses in the real world, our lenses are designed as graspable tools that can be created and removed as needed, manipulated and parameterized depending on the task, and even combined to flexibly create new views on the data. We implemented our ideas in a system for the visual analysis of 3D sonar data. Informal user feedback from more than a hundred people suggests that the designed lens interaction is easy to use for the task of finding a hidden wreck in sonar data.