Physical navigation to support graph exploration on a large high-resolution display

Abstract

Large high-resolution displays are potentially useful to pre-sent complex data at a higher level of detail embedded in the context of surrounding information. This requires an appropriate visualization and also suitable interaction techniques. In this paper, we describe an approach to visualize a graph hierarchy on a large high-resolution display and to interact with the visualization by physical navigation. The visualization is based on a node-link diagram with dynamically computed labels. We utilize head tracking to allow users to explore the graph hierarchy at different levels of abstraction. Detailed information is displayed when the user is closer to the display and aggregate views of higher levels of abstraction are obtained by stepping back. The head tracking information is also utilized for steering the dynamic labeling depending on the user's position and orientation. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.