Title Information
Title
Using Virtual Reality Effectively in Scientific Data Exploration - Perception, Usability and Design in Immersive Displays
Name: Personal
Name Part
Novotny, Johannes
Role
Role Term: Text
creator
Name: Personal
Name Part
Laidlaw, David H.
Role
Role Term: Text
Advisor
Name: Personal
Name Part
Bowman, Doug A.
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Tompkin, James
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University. Department of Computer Science
Role
Role Term: Text
sponsor
Origin Information
Copyright Date
2021
Physical Description
Extent
14, 129 p.
digitalOrigin
born digital
Note: thesis
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2021
Genre (aat)
theses
Abstract
In recent years, the rising popularity and availability of Virtual Reality (VR) systems has enabled the use of immersive display systems for scientific data exploration. This opened up a large design space for novel visualization techniques that needs to be thoroughly investigated in order to build practical software. This dissertation investigates aspects of creating effective VR visualizations from multiple angles: First, by analyzing how display fidelity affects user performance immersive data exploration situations. Here, results from a large scale study evaluating the factors of display resolution, field of view and display artifacts show their varying impact on user effectiveness depending on the exploration tasks presented. A second line of studies analyzed the limits of human perception within high-resolution VR environments by evaluating the ability of users to identify minute details in immersive medical scan visualizations and their ability to read text within 3D environments containing visual obstructions. In an effort to obtain generalizable results, the experiments above were performed across multiple VR hardware systems, leading to recommendations about their effective utilization. Finally, this dissertation provides insights into best practices for VR application development through a large-scale case study of the "Scientific Sketching" design methodology. A managed collaboration of biologists, art students and computer science students over the course of three years resulted in a novel fluid-dynamics visualization application tailored to the specific needs of our biology collaborators. The information gathered alongside the development process built a strong basis for future VR application development. Together, the contributions of this work form a set of guidelines for the effective use of immersive visualizations in scientific settings.
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/01168049")
Topic
Visual perception
Subject
Topic
human-computer interaction
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/01167688")
Topic
Virtual reality
Subject
Topic
Scientific Visualization
Language
Language Term (ISO639-2B)
English
Record Information
Record Content Source (marcorg)
RPB
Record Creation Date (encoding="iso8601")
20210607
Type of Resource (primo)
dissertations