Yang Yalong, Dwyer Tim, Jenny Bernhard, Marriott Kim, Cordeil Maxime, Chen Haohui
IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph. 2018 Aug 20. doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2018.2865192.
Immersive virtual- and augmented-reality headsets can overlay a flat image against any surface or hang virtual objects in the space around the user. The technology is rapidly improving and may, in the long term, replace traditional flat panel displays in many situations. When displays are no longer intrinsically flat, how should we use the space around the user for abstract data visualisation? In this paper, we ask this question with respect to origin-destination flow data in a global geographic context. We report on the findings of three studies exploring different spatial encodings for flow maps. The first experiment focuses on different 2D and 3D encodings for flows on flat maps. We find that participants are significantly more accurate with raised flow paths whose height is proportional to flow distance but fastest with traditional straight line 2D flows. In our second and third experiment we compared flat maps, 3D globes and a novel interactive design we call MapsLink, involving a pair of linked flat maps. We find that participants took significantly more time with MapsLink than other flow maps while the 3D globe with raised flows was the fastest, most accurate, and most preferred method. Our work suggests that careful use of the third spatial dimension can resolve visual clutter in complex flow maps.
沉浸式虚拟现实和增强现实头戴设备可以将平面图像叠加在任何表面上，或者在用户周围的空间中悬挂虚拟物体。这项技术正在迅速改进，从长远来看，可能会在许多情况下取代传统的平板显示器。当显示器不再本质上是平面时，我们应该如何利用用户周围的空间进行抽象数据可视化？在本文中，我们针对全球地理背景下的起讫点流量数据提出了这个问题。我们报告了三项探索流量地图不同空间编码的研究结果。第一个实验聚焦于平面地图上流量的不同二维和三维编码。我们发现，对于高度与流量距离成正比的凸起流量路径，参与者的准确性显著更高，但对于传统的二维直线流量，参与者的速度最快。在我们的第二个和第三个实验中，我们比较了平面地图、三维地球仪和一种我们称为MapsLink的新型交互式设计，它涉及一对相连的平面地图。我们发现，参与者使用MapsLink的时间比其他流量地图显著更多，而带有凸起流量的三维地球仪是最快、最准确且最受青睐的方法。我们的研究表明，谨慎使用第三维空间可以解决复杂流量地图中的视觉混乱问题。
