{Projects}
Perceptual Scalability
Paper: Beth Yost and Chris North.
"The Perceptual Scalability of
Visualization." Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Information
Visualization, (To appear) 2006.
Also appearing in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
Abstract: Larger, higher resolution displays can be used to
increase the scalability of information visualizations. But just how
much can scalability increase using larger displays before hitting human
perceptual and/or cognitive limits? And are the same techniques that are
good on a single monitor also the techniques that are best when they are
scaled up using large, high-resolution displays? To answer these
questions we performed a controlled experiment on user performance time,
accuracy, and subjective workload when scaling up data quantity with
different space-time-attribute visualizations using a large,
tiled-display. Twelve college students used small multiples, embedded
bar matrices, and embedded time-series graphs either on a 2Mpixel
display or with data scaled up using a 32Mpixel tiled-display.
Participants performed various overview and detail tasks on geospatially
referenced multidimensional time-series data. Results showed that
current designs are perceptually scalable because they result in a
decrease in task completion time when normalized per attribute along
with no decrease in accuracy. It also appears that for the visualizations
selected for
this study, the relative comparison between designs is generally
consistent between display sizes. However, results also suggest that
encoding is more important on a smaller display while spatial grouping
is more important on a larger display. In addition to the results of the
experiment, we provide some suggestions for designers based on our
experience designing visualization for large displays.
Viewport Size and Form Factor
(Curvature)
Paper: Shupp, L., et al.
"Evaluation of Viewport Size and Curvature of Large, High-Resolution
Displays." in
Graphics Interface 2006.
2006. Qué bec City, Canada.
Abstract: Tiling multiple
monitors to increase the amount of screen space has become an area of
great interest to researchers. While previous research has shown user
performance benefits when using two monitors next to each other, little
research has analyzed whether very large high-resolution displays result
in better user performance. We compared user performance time, accuracy,
and mental workload on geospatial search, route tracing, and comparison
tasks across one, twelve (4x3), and twenty-four (8x3) tiled monitor
configurations. Additionally, we included display configurations that
involved uniformly curving the twelve and twenty-four monitor displays.
Generally, the larger the viewport size the faster users perform. We
show that user frustration is significantly less in the twenty-four
monitor condition than the one monitor condition. We also show that
curving displays increases user performance.
Presentation:
Graphics Interface 2006
High-Resolution Gaming
Paper: Sabri, A., Ball, R., Bhatia, S., Fabian, A., and North, C.
"High-Resolution Gaming: Interfaces, Notifications and the User
Experience." Interacting with
Computers Journal. (To appear) 2006.
Abstract: Advances in technology
and display hardware have allowed the resolution of monitors—and video
games—to incrementally improve over the past three decades. However, little
research has been done in preparation for the resolutions that will be
available in the future if this trend continues. We developed a number of
display prototypes to explore the different aspects of gaming on large,
high-resolution displays. By running a series of experiments, we were not
only able to evaluate the benefits of these displays for gaming, but also
identify potential user interface and hardware issues that can arise.
Building on these results, various interface design solutions were
developed to better notify the user of passive and critical game
information as well as to overcome difficulties with mouse-based
interaction on these displays. Different display form factors and user
input devices are also explored in order to determine how they can further
enhance the gaming experience. In many cases, the new techniques developed
can be applied to single-monitor games as well as solve the same problems
in other real-world high-resolution applications.
Video: Quake on curved 24-monitor display using gyro mouse:
MPG4 or
WMV
Size &
Resolution
Paper:
Ni, T., Bowman, D., and
Chen, J.
"Increased Display
Size and Resolution Improve Task Performance in Information-Rich Virtual
Environments." in
Graphics
Interface 2006. 2006. Qué bec City, Canada.
Abstract: Physically large-size
high-resolution displays have been widely applied in various fields.
There is a lack of research, however, that demonstrates empirically how
users benefit from the increased size and resolution afforded by
emerging technologies. We designed a controlled experiment to evaluate
the individual and combined effects of display size and resolution on
task performance in an Information-Rich Virtual Environment (IRVE). We
also explored how a wayfinding aid would facilitate spatial information
acquisition and mental map construction when users
worked with various displays. We found that users were most effective at
performing IRVE search and comparison tasks on large high-resolution
displays. In addition, users working with large displays became less
reliant on wayfinding aids to form spatial knowledge. We discuss the
impact of these results on the design and presentation of IRVEs, the
choice of displays for particular applications, and future work to
extend our findings.
Interaction
Paper:
Tao Ni and Doug Bowman. "Design
Effective Interaction with Large High-Resolution Displays." IEEE
Visualization 2005 workshop on using large high-resolution displays for
Information Visualization. October 2005. Minneapolis, MN.
Introduction: With
recent advances in technology, large high-resolution displays are
becoming prevalent in scientific visualization, automotive design,
creativity and innovation, and collaborative work. A common
configuration is to couple many commercially available projectors and
PCs in a projector array to produce a tiled seamless high quality
display landscape.
Large high-resolution displays do not restrict designs to traditional
desktop displays, creating new opportunities for various research
communities. However, we cannot fully exploit the benefits of large
high-resolution displays by merely presenting a huge amount of
information. Rather, we should develop usable and useful input devices
and interaction techniques that accommodate distinct characteristics
afforded by such emerging technologies. Large high-resolution displays
presents a number of interaction challenges not well addressed by
traditional input devices (represented by keyboard and mouse) and
graphical user interface metaphors (represented by WIMP)...
Display Technologies
Paper: Tao Ni, Greg S.
Schmidt, Oliver G. Staadt, Mark A. Livingston, Robert Ball, Richard May.
"A Survey of Large
High-Resolution Display Technologies, Techniques, and Applications."
In Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality Conference. March 2006.
Alexandria, VA.
Abstract: Continued advances in display hardware, computing
power, networking, and rendering algorithms have all converged to
dramatically improve large high-resolution display capabilities. We
present a survey on prior research with large high-resolution displays.
In the hardware configurations section we examine systems including
multi-monitor workstations, recon gurable projector arrays, and others.
Rendering and the data pipeline are addressed with an overview of
current technologies. We discuss many applications for large
high-resolution displays such as automotive design, scientific
visualization, control centers, and others. Quantifying the effects of
large high-resolution displays on human performance and other aspects is
important as we look toward future advances in display technology and
how it is applied in different situations. Interacting with these
displays brings a different set of challenges for HCI professionals, so
an overview of some of this work is provided. Finally, we present our
view of the top ten greatest challenges in large high-resolution
displays.
Mouse Size & Navigation
Paper: Robert Ball, Michael Szwedo, and Chris North. "Dynamic Size and Speed Cursor for Large, High-Resolution Displays." Technical Report TR-06-16, Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Abstract: As larger displays
become more available their lack of adequate input
techniques become apparent. In this paper we show the scalability
of the dynamic size and speed cursor for large, high-resolution displays.
We introduce the idea of a dynamic paradigm for input devices, explain
three implementations of the dynamic size and speed (DSS) cursor and
explain results of an experiment. In our experiment we compared the three
different implementations of the dynamic size and speed cursor to cursor
warping and standard cursor settings. In the experiment we found gender
bias for two different tasks (clicking and simple drag and drop), found
that one of the dynamic size and speed cursor implementations generally
outperformed cursor warping and the standard cursor setting, and explain
how distance to and size of targets effected results. We conclude by
suggesting the use of a dynamic size and speed cursor with large,
high-resolution displays.
Information Rich
Virtual Environments
Paper: Polys, Nicholas F., Kim, S., Bowman, D.A. "Human
performance in virtual spaces: Effects of information layout, screen
size, and field of view on user performance in information-rich virtual
environments" Proceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality
software and technology VRST '05. Monterey, CA: ACM SIGGRAPH. 2005.
Abstract: This paper describes our recent experimental evaluation
of Information-Rich Virtual Environment (IRVE) interfaces. To explore
the depth cue/visibility tradeoff between annotation schemes, we design
and evaluate two information layout techniques to support search and
comparison tasks. The techniques provide different depth and association
cues between objects and their labels: labels were displayed either in
the virtual world relative to their referent (Object Space) or on an
image plane workspace (Viewport Space). The Software Field of View (SFOV)
was controlled to 60 or 100 degrees of vertical angle and two groups
were tested: those running on a single monitor and those on a tiled
nine-panel display. Users were timed, tracked for correctness, and gave
ratings for both difficulty and satisfaction on each task. Significant
advantages were found for the Viewport interface, and for high SFOV. The
interactions between these variables suggest special design
considerations to effectively support search and comparison performance
across monitor configurations and projection distortions.
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