Immersion versus embodiment: Embodied cognition for immersive analytics in mixed reality environments

Abstract

Visualization techniques are used to analyze and understand data within the context of the underlying conceptual and physical model. We collect and generate data at an increasingly fast rate, but visual analysis capabilities are lagging. The challenges of visual data analysis and exploration are associated with very large data sets, increased dimensionality, and the consideration of data semantics, including features, focus and context. Typically, visual analysis is done using Coordinate Multiple Views (CMV) tools that support linking and brushing (selection) of data in multiple synchronized views. The recent advances in MR technologies provide a great opportunity to support deployment and use of MR applications for visualization and visual analytics. Direct mapping of CMV tools to an MR environment arguably creates more problems than it solves. Embodied interactions and embodied user interfaces lead towards invisible user interfaces and move the visualization and analysis from a computer screen to physical space and place. It is necessary to explore various interaction and visualization modalities in MR environments to identify best practices to leverage embodied cognition and interactions. Such explorations can benefit from a framework and an evaluation testbed for embodied interactive immersive analysis. The framework provides services for data access, data visualization (views), both traditional two-dimensional view and a three-dimensional equivalent, views assembly, gestures, and interaction devices. An Internet of Things based Smart Built Environment example is used to illustrate the proposed approach.