Effects of Immersion on Visual Analysis of Volume Data

Abstract

Volume visualization has been widely used for decades for analyzing datasets ranging from 3D medical images to seismic data to paleontological data. Many have proposed using immersive virtual reality (VR) systems to view volume visualizations, and there is anecdotal evidence of the benefits of VR for this purpose. However, there has been very little empirical research exploring the effects of higher levels of immersion for volume visualization, and it is not known how various components of immersion influence the effectiveness of visualization in VR. We conducted a controlled experiment in which we studied the independent and combined effects of three components of immersion (head tracking, field of regard, and stereoscopic rendering) on the effectiveness of visualization tasks with two x-ray microscopic computed tomography datasets. We report significant benefits of analyzing volume data in an environment involving those components of immersion. We find that the benefits do not necessarily require all three components simultaneously, and that the components have variable influence on different task categories. The results of our study improve our understanding of the effects of immersion on perceived and actual task performance, and provide guidance on the choice of display systems to designers seeking to maximize the effectiveness of volume visualization applications.

VisNEST — Interactive analysis of neural activity data

“…Second, recent work in the field, e.g. by Laha et al supports this anecdotal evidence with a formal evaluation for the case of VR-based volume data exploration [11]. Although their work focuses on volume data, we hypothesize that VR technology analogously provides similar benefits for the visualization of 3D geometries which are part of our first requirement (cf.…”

Studying the Effects of Stereo, Head Tracking, and Field of Regard on a Small-Scale Spatial Judgment Task

“…Studying the effects of display components through the same approach as we used, Laha et al [37] independently controlled head tracking, stereo, and FOR (field of regard-the range of the VE that can be viewed with physical rotation) in a CAVE-type display. Studying performance differences on feature searches and general structural understanding for volume data visualization, the researchers found benefits for the enhanced versions of each of the display components.…”

A cognitive prosthesis for complex decision-making

“…A CAVE typically comprises three to six projectors arranged to display data on the walls of a room-sized cube, creating an environment that surrounds the user and provides a sense of immersion. Immersive tools can improve the identification of data clusters (Arms, Cook, and Cruz-Neira, 1999), as well as simple and complex searches (Laha et al, 2012). Such benefits of immersive virtual environments are partly explained by increased "presence" -an increased task focus resulting from the feeling of "being there" (Nash et al, 2000) -which is assumed to lead to a more sustained allocation of attentional resources and in turn, improved performance.…”