The elegance of using virtual interactive lenses to provide alternative visual representations for selected regions of interest is highly valued, especially in the realm of visualization. Today, more than 50 lens techniques are known in the closer context of visualization, far more in related fields. In this paper, we extend our previous survey on interactive lenses for visualization. We propose a definition and a conceptual model of lenses as extensions of the classic visualization pipeline. An extensive review of the literature covers lens techniques for different types of data and different user tasks and also includes the technologies employed to display lenses and to interact with them. We introduce a taxonomy of lenses for visualization and illustrate its utility by dissecting in detail a multi-touch lens for exploring large graph layouts. As a conclusion of our review, we identify challenges and unsolved problems to be addressed in future research.

In information visualization, interaction is commonly carried out by using traditional input devices, and visual feedback is usually given on desktop displays. By contrast, recent advances in interactive surface technology suggest combining interaction and display functionality in a single device for a more direct interaction. With our work, we contribute to the seamless integration of interaction and display devices and introduce new ways of visualizing and directly interacting with information. Rather than restricting the interaction to the display surface alone, we explicitly use the physical three-dimensional space above it for natural interaction with multiple displays. For this purpose, we introduce tangible views as spatially aware lightweight displays that can be interacted with by moving them through the physical space on or above a tabletop display's surface. Tracking the 3D movement of tangible views allows us to control various parameters of a visualization with more degrees of freedom. Tangible views also facilitate making multiple -previously virtual -views physically "graspable". In this paper, we introduce a number of interaction and visualization patterns for tangible views that constitute the vocabulary for performing a variety of common visualization tasks. Several implemented case studies demonstrate the usefulness of tangible views for widely used information visualization approaches and suggest the high potential of this novel approach to support interaction with complex visualizations.

Gaze visualizations represent an effective way for gaining fast insights into eye tracking data. Current approaches do not adequately support eye tracking studies for three-dimensional (3D) virtual environments. Hence, we propose a set of advanced gaze visualization techniques for supporting gaze behavior analysis in such environments. Similar to commonly used gaze visualizations for twodimensional stimuli (e.g., images and websites), we contribute advanced 3D scan paths and 3D attentional maps. In addition, we introduce a models of interest timeline depicting viewed models, which can be used for displaying scan paths in a selected time segment. A prototype toolkit is also discussed which combines an implementation of our proposed techniques. Their potential for facilitating eye tracking studies in virtual environments was supported by a user study among eye tracking and visualization experts.

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