Static visualizations have analytic and expressive value. However, many interactive tasks cannot be completed using static visualizations. As datasets grow in size and complexity, static visualizations start losing their analytic and expressive power for interactive data exploration. Despite this limitation of static visualizations, there are still many cases where visualizations are limited to being static (e.g., visualizations on presentation slides or posters). We believe in many of these cases, static visualizations will benefit from allowing users to perform interactive tasks on them. Inspired by the introduction of numerous commercial personal augmented reality (AR) devices, we propose an AR solution that allows interactive data exploration of datasets on static visualizations. In particular, we present a prototype system named VisAR that uses the Microsoft Hololens to enable users to complete interactive tasks on static visualizations.
Virtual environments (VEs) allow users to experience and interact with a rich sensory environment, but most virtual worlds contain only sensory information similar to that which we experience in the physical world. Information-rich virtual environments (IRVEs) combine the power of VEs and information visualization, augmenting VEs with additional abstract information such as text, numbers, or graphs. IRVEs can be useful in many contexts, such as education, medicine, or construction. In our work, we are developing a theoretical foundation for the study of IRVEs and tools for their development and evaluation. We present a working definition of IRVEs, a discussion of information display and interaction in IRVEs. We also describe a software framework for IRVE development and a testbed enabling evaluation of text display techniques for IRVEs. Finally, we present a research agenda for this area.