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Storyline visualization has emerged as an innovative method for illustrating the development and changes in stories across various domains. Traditional approaches typically represent stories with one line per character, progressing from left to right. While effective for simpler narratives, this method faces significant challenges when dealing with complex stories involving multiple characters, as well as temporal and spatial dynamics. In this study, we investigate the potential of immersive environments for enhancing storyline visualizations. We begin by summarizing the key design considerations for effective storyline visualization in virtual reality (VR). Guided by these principles, we develop 3DStoryline, a system that allows users to view and interact with 3D immersive storyline visualizations. To evaluate the effectiveness of 3DStoryline, we conduct a task-based user study, revealing that the system significantly enhances users' comprehension of complex narratives., Comment: 9 pages

The 2nd Joint Workshop on Cross Reality (JWCR'24), organized as part of ISMAR 2024, seeks to explore the burgeoning field of Cross Reality (CR), which encompasses the seamless integration and transition between various points on the reality-virtuality continuum (RVC) such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Virtuality (AV), and Augmented Reality (AR). This hybrid workshop aims to build upon the foundation laid by the inaugural JWCR at ISMAR 2023, which successfully unified diverse CR research communities. The workshop will address key themes including CR visualization, interaction, user behavior, design, development, engineering, and collaboration. CR Visualization focuses on creating and displaying spatial data across the RVC, enabling users to navigate and interpret information fluidly. CR Interaction delves into natural user engagements using gestures, voice commands, and other advanced techniques to enhance immersion. The study of CR User Behavior and Experience investigates how users perceive and interact within these hybrid environments. Furthermore, CR Design and Development emphasizes creating effective CR applications using innovative processes and tools, while CR Collaboration examines methods for fostering teamwork in mixed reality settings., Comment: 5 pages

We propose and study a novel cross-reality environment that seamlessly integrates a monoscopic 2D surface (an interactive screen with touch and pen input) with a stereoscopic 3D space (an augmented reality HMD) to jointly host spatial data visualizations. This innovative approach combines the best of two conventional methods of displaying and manipulating spatial 3D data, enabling users to fluidly explore diverse visual forms using tailored interaction techniques. Providing such effective 3D data exploration techniques is pivotal for conveying its intricate spatial structures -- often at multiple spatial or semantic scales -- across various application domains and requiring diverse visual representations for effective visualization. To understand user reactions to our new environment, we began with an elicitation user study, in which we captured their responses and interactions. We observed that users adapted their interaction approaches based on perceived visual representations, with natural transitions in spatial awareness and actions while navigating across the physical surface. Our findings then informed the development of a design space for spatial data exploration in cross-reality. We thus developed cross-reality environments tailored to three distinct domains: for 3D molecular structure data, for 3D point cloud data, and for 3D anatomical data. In particular, we designed interaction techniques that account for the inherent features of interactions in both spaces, facilitating various forms of interaction, including mid-air gestures, touch interactions, pen interactions, and combinations thereof, to enhance the users' sense of presence and engagement. We assessed the usability of our environment with biologists, focusing on its use for domain research. In addition, we evaluated our interaction transition designs with virtual and mixed-reality experts to gather further insights., Comment: 15 pages, 20 figures, IEEE VIS2024

We propose three novel spatial data selection techniques for particle data in VR visualization environments. They are designed to be target- and context-aware and be suitable for a wide range of data features and complex scenarios. Each technique is designed to be adjusted to particular selection intents: the selection of consecutive dense regions, the selection of filament-like structures, and the selection of clusters -- with all of them facilitating post-selection threshold adjustment. These techniques allow users to precisely select those regions of space for further exploration -- with simple and approximate 3D pointing, brushing, or drawing input -- using flexible point- or path-based input and without being limited by 3D occlusions, non-homogeneous feature density, or complex data shapes. These new techniques are evaluated in a controlled experiment and compared with the Baseline method, a region-based 3D painting selection. Our results indicate that our techniques are effective in handling a wide range of scenarios and allow users to select data based on their comprehension of crucial features. Furthermore, we analyze the attributes, requirements, and strategies of our spatial selection methods and compare them with existing state-of-the-art selection methods to handle diverse data features and situations. Based on this analysis we provide guidelines for choosing the most suitable 3D spatial selection techniques based on the interaction environment, the given data characteristics, or the need for interactive post-selection threshold adjustment.