For decades, the growth and volume of digital data collection has made it
challenging to digest large volumes of information and extract underlying
structure. Coined 'Big Data', massive amounts of information has quite often
been gathered inconsistently (e.g from many sources, of various forms, at
different rates, etc.). These factors impede the practices of not only
processing data, but also analyzing and displaying it in an efficient manner to
the user. Many efforts have been completed in the data mining and visual
analytics community to create effective ways to further improve analysis and
achieve the knowledge desired for better understanding. Our approach for
improved big data visual analytics is two-fold, focusing on both visualization
and interaction. Given geo-tagged information, we are exploring the benefits of
visualizing datasets in the original geospatial domain by utilizing a virtual
reality platform. After running proven analytics on the data, we intend to
represent the information in a more realistic 3D setting, where analysts can
achieve an enhanced situational awareness and rely on familiar perceptions to
draw in-depth conclusions on the dataset. In addition, developing a
human-computer interface that responds to natural user actions and inputs
creates a more intuitive environment. Tasks can be performed to manipulate the
dataset and allow users to dive deeper upon request, adhering to desired
demands and intentions. Due to the volume and popularity of social media, we
developed a 3D tool visualizing Twitter on MIT's campus for analysis. Utilizing
emerging technologies of today to create a fully immersive tool that promotes
visualization and interaction can help ease the process of understanding and
representing big data.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, 2015 IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing
Conference (HPEC '15); corrected typo