Interaction for Immersive Analytics

International audienceIn this chapter, we briefly review the development of natural user interfaces and discuss their role in providing human-computer interaction that is immersive in various ways. Then we examine some opportunities for how these technologies might be used to better support data analysis tasks. Specifically, we review and suggest some interaction design guidelines for immersive analytics. We also review some hardware setups for data visualization that are already archetypal. Finally, we look at some emerging system designs that suggest future directions

A 3D modeling method to calculate the surface areas of coral branches

The quantification of physiological and biochemical parameters in coral branches require normalization to a stable factor, such as the tissue biomass or surface area. Three dimensional (3D) animation software (Gmax®) was evaluated for estimating the surface area of simple coral branches. The software was highly predictive of the known surface areas of small (20–60 mm long) plastic rods and cones (r 2 > 0.99), and of small (30–60 mm) Acropora millepora branches (r 2 = 0.98) whose surface area had been obtained using the traditional wax-weight method. Two normalization parameters, 3D modeled surface area and tissue biomass (measured as protein), were then compared for A. millepora branches collected in summer and winter. In winter, protein and surface area were correlated (r 2 > 0.61), but not in summer, indicating that choice of normalizing parameter will influence the outcome of experimental analyses