FI3D: Direct-Touch Interaction for the Exploration of 3D Scientific Visualization Spaces

Description:

 
 
 

We present the design and evaluation of FI3D, a direct-touch data exploration technique for 3D visualization spaces. The exploration of three-dimensional data is core to many tasks and domains involving scientific visualizations. Thus, effective data navigation techniques are essential to enable comprehension, understanding, and analysis of the information space. While evidence exists that touch can provide higher-bandwidth input, somesthetic information that is valuable when interacting with virtual worlds, and awareness when working in collaboration, scientific data exploration in 3D poses unique challenges to the development of effective data manipulations. We present a technique that provides touch interaction with 3D scientific data spaces in 7 DOF. This interaction does not require the presence of dedicated objects to constrain the mapping, a design decision important for many scientific datasets such as particle simulations in astronomy or physics. We report on an evaluation that compares the technique to conventional mouse-based interaction. Our results show that touch interaction is competitive in interaction speed for translation and integrated interaction, is easy to learn and use, and is preferred for exploration and wayfinding tasks. To further explore the applicability of our basic technique for other types of scientific visualizations we present a second case study, adjusting the interaction to the illustrative visualization of fiber tracts of the brain and the manipulation of cutting planes in this context.

Paper download:  (23.1 MB),  (without embedded video, 8.3 MB)

Demos:

You can download a demo of the FI3D technique applied to the astronomical data (for Win32, 10.3MB) as well as a demo of FI3D applied to the illustrative brain visualization (for Win32, 8.9MB) and try these out for yourself. To be fully functional, however, both demos require Smart DViT hardware. For the astronomical data demo we also provide a two-mouse emulation.

For those with a TUIO-based touch surface, we now also provide a version of the demo of the FI3D technique applied to the astronomical data with TUIO input (for Win32, 9.5MB).

Video:

center (:neo_flv-player (http:../personal/videos/)Nijboer_2010_EFG(.flv) width=510 height=375 startimage="../personal/videos/Nijboer_2010_EFG.jpg" -link:)

Get the video:

Fast-Forward at VisWeek 2010:

Get the fast-forward video:

Presentation at VisWeek 2010:

Get the presentation video:

Pictures:

Poster presented at ITS 2009:

Cross-References:

The second case study that we describe for this technique uses the illustrative rendering of brain fiber tracts within its brain and skull context, see the page about this pure illustrative rendering technique. Also, the frame interaction is related to our frame interaction technique for 2D digital concept sketching, see the page about this interaction technique as well.

Additional material:

Main Reference:

Lingyun Yu, Pjotr Svetachov, Petra Isenberg, Maarten H. Everts, and Tobias Isenberg (2010) FI3D: Direct-Touch Interaction for the Exploration of 3D Scientific Visualization Spaces. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 16(6):1613–1622, November/December 2010.
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BibTeX entry:



@ARTICLE{Yu:2010:FDT,
  author      = {Lingyun Yu and Pjotr Svetachov and Petra Isenberg and Maarten H. Everts and Tobias Isenberg},
  title       = {{FI3D}: Direct-Touch Interaction for the Exploration of {3D} Scientific Visualization Spaces},
  journal     = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
  year        = {2010},
  volume      = {16},
  number      = {6},
  month       = nov # {/} # dec,
  pages       = {1613--1622},
  doi         = {10.1109/TVCG.2010.157},
  doi_url     = {https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2010.157},
  oa_hal_url  = {https://hal.science/inria-00587377},
  url         = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/p/Yu2010FDT},
  pdf         = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/personal/papers/Yu_2010_FDT.pdf},
}

Other References:

Lingyun Yu and Tobias Isenberg (2009) Exploring One- and Two-Touch Interaction for 3D Scientific Visualization Spaces. In Mark Ashdown and Mark Hancock, eds., Posters of Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ITS, November 23–25, Banff, Alberta, Canada). 2009. Extended abstract and poster, also see the TVCG article.
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BibTeX entry:



@INPROCEEDINGS{Yu:2009:EOT,
  author      = {Lingyun Yu and Tobias Isenberg},
  title       = {Exploring One- and Two-Touch Interaction for {3D} Scientific Visualization Spaces},
  booktitle   = {Posters of Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ITS, November 23--25, Banff, Alberta, Canada)},
  OPTeditor   = {Mark Ashdown and Mark Hancock},
  year        = {2009},
  url         = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/p/Yu2010FDT},
  pdf         = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/personal/papers/Yu_2009_EOT.pdf},
}
Lingyun Yu and Tobias Isenberg (2009) Interactive Visualization of Cosmological Simulations. In SIREN: Scientific ICT Research Event Netherlands (November 5, University of Twente, The Netherlands). 2009. Poster, also see the TVCG article.
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BibTeX entry:



@INPROCEEDINGS{Yu:2009:IVC,
  author      = {Lingyun Yu and Tobias Isenberg},
  title       = {Interactive Visualization of Cosmological Simulations},
  booktitle   = {SIREN: Scientific ICT Research Event Netherlands (November 5, University of Twente, The Netherlands)},
  year        = {2009},
  url         = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/p/Yu2010FDT},
  pdf         = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/personal/papers/Yu_2009_IVC.pdf},
}
Pjotr Svetachov (2010) Illustrative Rendering and Multi-Touch Exploration of DTI Data and Its Context. Master's thesis, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 2010.
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BibTeX entry:



@MASTERSTHESIS{Svetachov:2010:IRM,
  author      = {Pjotr Svetachov},
  title       = {Illustrative Rendering and Multi-Touch Exploration of {DTI} Data and Its Context},
  year        = {2010},
  school      = {University of Groningen},
  address     = {The Netherlands},
  url         = {https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/9476/},
  url2        = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/VideosAndDemos/Svetachov2010DCI},
  pdf         = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/personal/papers_students/Svetachov_2010_IRM.pdf},
}
Lingyun Yu (2013) Touching 3D Data: Interactive Visualization of Cosmological Simulations. PhD thesis, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, June 2013.
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BibTeX entry:



@PHDTHESIS{Yu:2013:T3D,
  author      = {Yu, Lingyun},
  title       = {Touching {3D} Data: Interactive Visualization of Cosmological Simulations},
  year        = {2013},
  school      = {University of Groningen},
  month       = jun,
  address     = {The Netherlands},
  url         = {https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/touching-3d-data-interactive-visualization-of-cosmological-simula},
  url2        = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/VideosAndDemos/Yu2012ESA},
  pdf         = {https://tobias.isenberg.cc/personal/papers_students/Yu.2013.T3D.pdf},
}

This work was done at the Scientific Visualization and Computer Graphics Lab of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Also see Lingyun Yu's page on this project.