BalloonProbe: reducing occlusion in 3D using interactive space distortion

ABSTRACT

Using a 3D virtual environment for information visualization is a promising approach, but can in many cases be plagued by a phenomenon of literally not being able to see the forest for the trees. Some parts of the 3D visualization will inevitably occlude other parts, leading both to loss of efficiency and, more seriously, correctness; users may have to change their viewpoint in a non-trivial way to be able to access hidden objects, and, worse, they may not even discover some of the objects in the visualization due to this inter-object occlusion. In this paper, we present a space distortion interaction technique called the BalloonProbe which, on the user's command, inflates a spherical force field that repels objects around the 3D cursor to the surface of the sphere, separating occluding objects from each other. Inflating and deflating the sphere is performed through smooth animation, ghosted traces showing the displacement of each repelled object. Our prototype implementation uses a 3D cursor for positioning as well as for inflating and deflating the force field ``balloon''. Informal testing suggests that the BalloonProbe is a powerful way of giving users interactive control over occlusion in 3D visualizations.

REFERENCES

• 1: T. Todd Elvins , David R. Nadeau , David Kirsh, Worldlets—3D thumbnails for wayfinding in virtual environments, Proceedings of the 10th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.21-30, October 14-17, 1997, Banff, Alberta, Canada [doi>10.1145/263407.263504]
• 2: Shinji Fukatsu , Yoshifumi Kitamura , Toshihiro Masaki , Fumio Kishino, Intuitive control of “bird's eye” overview images for navigation in an enormous virtual environment, Proceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology, p.67-76, November 02-05, 1998, Taipei, Taiwan [doi>10.1145/293701.293710]
• 3: G. W. Furnas, Generalized fisheye views, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.16-23, April 13-17, 1986, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
• 4: J. Lamping and R. Rao. The Hyperbolic Browser: A focus + context technique for visualizing large hierarchies. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 7(1):33--35, 1996.
• 5: Jock D. Mackinlay , George G. Robertson , Stuart K. Card, The perspective wall: detail and context smoothly integrated, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Reaching through technology, p.173-176, April 27-May 02, 1991, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States [doi>10.1145/108844.108870]
• 6: Ramana Rao , Stuart K. Card, The table lens: merging graphical and symbolic representations in an interactive focus + context visualization for tabular information, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: celebrating interdependence, p.318-322, April 24-28, 1994, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/191666.191776]
• 7: Richard Stoakley , Matthew J. Conway , Randy Pausch, Virtual reality on a WIM: interactive worlds in miniature, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.265-272, May 07-11, 1995, Denver, Colorado, United States [doi>10.1145/223904.223938]
• 8: N. Wong, M. S. T. Carpendale, and S. Greenberg. EdgeLens: An interactive method for managing edge congestion in graphs. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization 2003, pages 51--58, 2003.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems
          Subjects: Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.7 Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism
          Subjects: Virtual reality

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
3D space distortion, interaction technique, occlusion reduction