An interactive tabletop computer is a computing device that offers a large, horizontal digital di... more An interactive tabletop computer is a computing device that offers a large, horizontal digital display and enables one or more users to input commands to the device by interacting directly with the display surface, either via a pen-based device or directly with their hands. Tabletop computers provide a fundamentally different type of user interaction environment than traditional computing platforms, such as personal computers or laptops. The ability to interact directly with one’s data on a large digital display provides opportunities for developing richer, more natural human-computer interaction metaphors. These possibilities, combined with a tabletop computer’s ability to support multi-user interaction, further introduce opportunities to provide improved interaction metaphors for data sharing during collaboration. As modern 1 military personnel face increasing pressure to respond quickly to complex situations with limited resources, there is increasing demand for key decision make...
Proceedings of 1994 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages
An experiment is reported which tests whether network information is more effectively displayed i... more An experiment is reported which tests whether network information is more effectively displayed in a three dimensional space than in a two dimensional space. The experimental task is to trace a path in a network and the experiment is carried out in 2 0 , in a 3 0 stereo view, in a 3 0 view with head coupled perspective, and in a 3 0 stereo view with head coupled perspective: this last condition creates a localized virtual reality display. The results show that the motion parallax obtained from the head coupling of perspective is more important than stereopsis in revealing structural information. Overall the results show that three times as much information can be perceived in the head coupled stereo view as in the 2 0 view.
This paper describes interactive and algorithmic layout in GraphVisualizer3D, an experimental sys... more This paper describes interactive and algorithmic layout in GraphVisualizer3D, an experimental system for carrying out software engineering tasks via a three-dimensional diagram. In GraphVisualizer3D the software structure is represented as a nested graph so that, for example, the methods and data of a class will be shown as a sub-graph within a 3D box representing the class, and the class
This paper introduces six graphical principles for 3 0 network displays. These are justified with... more This paper introduces six graphical principles for 3 0 network displays. These are justified with examples from GraphVisualizer3D, a system developed by the authors to investigate the problems of 3 0 visualization of information networks. GraphVisualizer3D enables the exploration of sulface color, surface texture, object shape, arc shape and labeling conventions.
There is increasing evidence that 3D visualization of complex structures has advantages over 2D v... more There is increasing evidence that 3D visualization of complex structures has advantages over 2D visualization. While nested directed graphs are an important method of representing information in 2D or 3D, they must be effectively organized in order to be understood. Most work on graph layout has assumed that fully automatic layout is desirable. Through our work with graphs representing large
Most systems for visualizing large information structures use 2D graphics to view networks of nod... more Most systems for visualizing large information structures use 2D graphics to view networks of nodes and arcs that represent data. To understand large structures it is often necessary to show both small-scale and large-scale structure. This has been called the problem of focus and context. Distortion, rapid zooming, elision, and multiple windows are all techniques that have been developed to provide both focus and context within single representations. We review these techniques and argue that 3D visualization has a number of advantages. A system called NestedVision3D (NV3D) will be presented that has been developed to investigate the use of 3D visualization for understanding the structure of large computer programs. NV3D is a system for visualizing large nested graphs using interactive 3D graphics. It has been tested with graphs containing more than 35,000 nodes and 100,000 relationships. We describe NV3D and its design philosophy. Basic navigation is facilitated by a set of 3D widgets, rapid scaling, and interactive elision. More experimental features include animations called snakes, which are used to trace dynamic software behavior.
There is increasing evidence that it is possible to perceive and understand increasingly complex ... more There is increasing evidence that it is possible to perceive and understand increasingly complex information systems if they are displayed as graphical objects in a three dimensional space. Object-oriented software provides an interesting test case - there is a natural mapping from software objects to visual objects. In this paper we explore two areas. 1) Information perception: we are running
This article concerns the benefits of presenting abstract data in 3D. Two experiments show that m... more This article concerns the benefits of presenting abstract data in 3D. Two experiments show that motion cues combined with stereo viewing can substantially increase the size of the graph that can be preceived. The first experiment was designed to provide quantitiative measurements of how much more (or less) can be understood in 3D than in 2D. The 3D display used was configured so that the image on the monitor was coupled to the user's actual eye positons (and it was updated in real-time as the user moved) as well as bring in stereo. Thus the effect was like a local “virtual reality” display located in the vicinity of the computer monitor. The results from this study show that head-coupled stereo viewing can increase the size of an abstract graph that can be understood by a factor of three; using stereo alone provided an increase by a factor of 1.6 and head coupling along produced an increase by a factor of 2.2. The second experiment examined a variety of motion cues provided by h...
An interactive tabletop computer is a computing device that offers a large, horizontal digital di... more An interactive tabletop computer is a computing device that offers a large, horizontal digital display and enables one or more users to input commands to the device by interacting directly with the display surface, either via a pen-based device or directly with their hands. Tabletop computers provide a fundamentally different type of user interaction environment than traditional computing platforms, such as personal computers or laptops. The ability to interact directly with one’s data on a large digital display provides opportunities for developing richer, more natural human-computer interaction metaphors. These possibilities, combined with a tabletop computer’s ability to support multi-user interaction, further introduce opportunities to provide improved interaction metaphors for data sharing during collaboration. As modern 1 military personnel face increasing pressure to respond quickly to complex situations with limited resources, there is increasing demand for key decision make...
Proceedings of 1994 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages
An experiment is reported which tests whether network information is more effectively displayed i... more An experiment is reported which tests whether network information is more effectively displayed in a three dimensional space than in a two dimensional space. The experimental task is to trace a path in a network and the experiment is carried out in 2 0 , in a 3 0 stereo view, in a 3 0 view with head coupled perspective, and in a 3 0 stereo view with head coupled perspective: this last condition creates a localized virtual reality display. The results show that the motion parallax obtained from the head coupling of perspective is more important than stereopsis in revealing structural information. Overall the results show that three times as much information can be perceived in the head coupled stereo view as in the 2 0 view.
This paper describes interactive and algorithmic layout in GraphVisualizer3D, an experimental sys... more This paper describes interactive and algorithmic layout in GraphVisualizer3D, an experimental system for carrying out software engineering tasks via a three-dimensional diagram. In GraphVisualizer3D the software structure is represented as a nested graph so that, for example, the methods and data of a class will be shown as a sub-graph within a 3D box representing the class, and the class
This paper introduces six graphical principles for 3 0 network displays. These are justified with... more This paper introduces six graphical principles for 3 0 network displays. These are justified with examples from GraphVisualizer3D, a system developed by the authors to investigate the problems of 3 0 visualization of information networks. GraphVisualizer3D enables the exploration of sulface color, surface texture, object shape, arc shape and labeling conventions.
There is increasing evidence that 3D visualization of complex structures has advantages over 2D v... more There is increasing evidence that 3D visualization of complex structures has advantages over 2D visualization. While nested directed graphs are an important method of representing information in 2D or 3D, they must be effectively organized in order to be understood. Most work on graph layout has assumed that fully automatic layout is desirable. Through our work with graphs representing large
Most systems for visualizing large information structures use 2D graphics to view networks of nod... more Most systems for visualizing large information structures use 2D graphics to view networks of nodes and arcs that represent data. To understand large structures it is often necessary to show both small-scale and large-scale structure. This has been called the problem of focus and context. Distortion, rapid zooming, elision, and multiple windows are all techniques that have been developed to provide both focus and context within single representations. We review these techniques and argue that 3D visualization has a number of advantages. A system called NestedVision3D (NV3D) will be presented that has been developed to investigate the use of 3D visualization for understanding the structure of large computer programs. NV3D is a system for visualizing large nested graphs using interactive 3D graphics. It has been tested with graphs containing more than 35,000 nodes and 100,000 relationships. We describe NV3D and its design philosophy. Basic navigation is facilitated by a set of 3D widgets, rapid scaling, and interactive elision. More experimental features include animations called snakes, which are used to trace dynamic software behavior.
There is increasing evidence that it is possible to perceive and understand increasingly complex ... more There is increasing evidence that it is possible to perceive and understand increasingly complex information systems if they are displayed as graphical objects in a three dimensional space. Object-oriented software provides an interesting test case - there is a natural mapping from software objects to visual objects. In this paper we explore two areas. 1) Information perception: we are running
This article concerns the benefits of presenting abstract data in 3D. Two experiments show that m... more This article concerns the benefits of presenting abstract data in 3D. Two experiments show that motion cues combined with stereo viewing can substantially increase the size of the graph that can be preceived. The first experiment was designed to provide quantitiative measurements of how much more (or less) can be understood in 3D than in 2D. The 3D display used was configured so that the image on the monitor was coupled to the user's actual eye positons (and it was updated in real-time as the user moved) as well as bring in stereo. Thus the effect was like a local “virtual reality” display located in the vicinity of the computer monitor. The results from this study show that head-coupled stereo viewing can increase the size of an abstract graph that can be understood by a factor of three; using stereo alone provided an increase by a factor of 1.6 and head coupling along produced an increase by a factor of 2.2. The second experiment examined a variety of motion cues provided by h...
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Papers by Glenn Franck