Stereoscopic Highlighting: 2D Graph Visualization on Stereo Displays

Abstract

Fig. 1. The stereoscopic highlighting technique illustrated with separate images for the left and right eye. The highlighted yellow node and all of its immediate neighbors are rendered at a depth closer to the viewer. The two images above represent a stereo pair. By crossing eyes, the reader can perceive the 3rd dimension of the stereoscopic highlighting.Abstract-In this paper we present a new technique and prototype graph visualization system, stereoscopic highlighting, to help answer accessibility and adjacency queries when interacting with a node-link diagram. Our technique utilizes stereoscopic depth to highlight regions of interest in a 2D graph by projecting these parts onto a plane closer to the viewpoint of the user. This technique aims to isolate and magnify specific portions of the graph that need to be explored in detail without resorting to other highlighting techniques like color or motion, which can then be reserved to encode other data attributes. This mechanism of stereoscopic highlighting also enables focus+context views by juxtaposing a detailed image of a region of interest with the overall graph, which is visualized at a further depth with correspondingly less detail. In order to validate our technique, we ran a controlled experiment with 16 subjects comparing static visual highlighting to stereoscopic highlighting on 2D and 3D graph layouts for a range of tasks. Our results show that while for most tasks the difference in performance between stereoscopic highlighting alone and static visual highlighting is not statistically significant, users performed better when both highlighting methods were used concurrently. In more complicated tasks, 3D layout with static visual highlighting outperformed 2D layouts with a single highlighting method. However, it did not outperform the 2D layout utilizing both highlighting techniques simultaneously. Based on these results, we conclude that stereoscopic highlighting is a promising technique that can significantly enhance graph visualizations for certain use cases.

Perceiving layered information on 3D displays using binocular disparity

“…The benefit of using 3D for visualizing (complex) content has been demonstrated in many domains such as in medicine [14] or graph visualization [1]. The use of 3D displays in the automotive domain has been investigated by Broy et al [2], who identified benefits regarding attractiveness when visualizing an in-vehicle information system's menu structure on a 3D display, compared to 2D displays.…”

Impact of big data on computer graphics

“…Tiled LCD walls are considered better as compared to CAVEs as far as the image quality is concerned. They offer higher image quality and better resolution up to thousand mega pixels [3].…”

Using eye-tracking to support interaction with layered 3D interfaces on stereoscopic displays

“…Prior work has shown a combination of salient features (e.g., color and depth) to significantly decrease search times [1,13]. A UI can hence employ depth layers to group or highlight urgent or frequently used objects.…”

“…As a result, gaze as input modality for public displays has recently received considerable attention [21]. At the same time, the advertising industry started to deploy auto-stereoscopic displays at airports and in train stations 1 . We envision this technology to be soon deployed also for information displays, where users could access transport schedules, store directories, or city maps.…”