Towards an Understanding of Augmented Reality Extensions for Existing 3D Data Analysis Tools

Abstract

We present an observational study with domain experts to understand how augmented reality (AR) extensions to traditional PC-based data analysis tools can help particle physicists to explore and understand 3D data. Our goal is to allow researchers to integrate stereoscopic AR-based visual representations and interaction techniques into their tools, and thus ultimately to increase the adoption of modern immersive analytics techniques in existing data analysis workflows. We use Microsoft's HoloLens as a lightweight and easily maintainable AR headset and replicate existing visualization and interaction capabilities on both the PC and the AR view. We treat the AR headset as a second yet stereoscopic screen, allowing researchers to study their data in a connected multi-view manner. Our results indicate that our collaborating physicists appreciate a hybrid data exploration setup with an interactive AR extension to improve their understanding of particle collision events.

The State of the Art of Spatial Interfaces for 3D Visualization

“…Section 2.1.3). Furthermore, mid‐air gestural interaction also seem to be the de‐facto expectation of some experts [WDB*20], making it a potentially more intuitive solution in some cases. Consequently, we believe that more research is needed in this direction.…”

“…To degree to which experts adopt visualization tools and integrate them into their workflows is a clear measure of the impact of the work, but this is only sometimes brought to the forefront in research publications (e.g. [LRF*11, RRA*12, BIAI17a, MCB*18, WDB*20]).…”

Personal Augmented Reality for Information Visualization on Large Interactive Displays

“…Therefore, recent work has combined AR with multi-touch displays. Wang et al [86] propose to integrate Augmented Reality visualizations into traditional desktop setups. Their findings suggest that this helps analysts to better understand their data.…”

Collaborative Work in Augmented Reality: A Survey

“…We can also differentiate AR applications displaying virtual objects tightly bound to real objects (e. g., AR situated analytics [52]) from those not proposing such bounding (e. g., climate visualization applications). The later can rely on traditional tools [170], [171] which should be considered as well.…”

“…Moreover, their selection speed drops a lot. Under this circumstance, hybrid interfaces (e. g., AR-HMD+HHD [151], AR-HMD+PC [170], [171]) with AR are currently being studied for visualization, both for more effective input and as a combination with traditional work environments. However, the mapping between the different input and view modes (e. g., 2D input with the 3D AR view [104]) remains challenging.…”