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Thinking in Virtual Spaces: Impacts of Virtual Reality on the Undergraduate Interior Design Process
Abstract
Throughout the iterative design process, both students and professionals rely on spatial thinking to develop and simulate these design solutions, but—in most cases—students lack the experience necessary to accurately visualize and translate the real-world scale of interior space. This is primarily because the current tools of representation are noticeably limited to the two-dimensions of visual information viewable on a traditional computer monitor or sheet of paper. The use of virtual reality systems can also support instruction focused on spatial reasoning. An immersive cohabitation of multiple designers within a detailed and complex model – at full-scale, in three dimensions, supports and augments spatial thinking by allowing designers to both conceptualize and reason volumetrically. This article will explore the experiences of the students and faculty using the virtual reality platform, and the challenges and impacts of incorporating full-scale analysis into the student's design process as they relate to scale perception, error recognition, and communication.
... The features of immersive virtual reality (IVR) have the potential to support students' design processes and outcomes by providing spatial representation in free-angle visuals at full-scale (Pober & Cook, 2019). VR offers users increased interactivity by affording a better sense of presence in the simulated environment (Sheridan, 2000;Sherman & Craig, 2003) while advancing mental and physical engagement with the space (Sheridan, 2000). ...
... However, students often struggle when interpreting twodimensional (2D)-based ADA learning resources into threedimensional (3D) spatial information, as they lack the knowledge to understand or transform 2D information into 3D spatial attributes while accurately visualizing design solutions at the correct real scale (Pober & Cook, 2019). Also, students may have a limited understanding of the difficulties that individuals with disabilities might experience (Perez Liebergesell et al., 2021). ...
... Prior studies have also suggested that virtual tools contribute to advancing students' problem-solving (PS) (Özgen et al., 2021;Pober & Cook, 2019). A design process for interior design solutions starts by understanding the problem and human behavior and develops through critical thinking and analysis (Clemons & Eckman, 2011). ...
Despite the benefits of virtual reality (VR), there has been limited exploration of how immersive VR can be implemented in interior design course content and how students perceive its use. For this study, we investigated how an immersive VR tool can be incorporated into the interior design studio to support second-year students’ (n = 18) design process and outcomes and examined its perceived usability (i.e., measured as usefulness, ease of use, enjoyment, and intention to use) for accessible space design. We also explored VR’s impact on advancing the interaction with space, understanding spatial information and problem-solving (PS), and how students accept the use of this technology. The students used immersive VR throughout the design process for one semester and then participated in a questionnaire. We found that immersive VR is helpful by enhancing students’ interaction with the designed space, developing better spatial understanding, and advancing PS. VR was also perceived to be highly enjoyable and moderately improved job performance but was slightly less easy to use. Participants showed a high intention to utilize VR, and spatial interaction and perceived enjoyment were significantly associated with that intention. Our findings suggest that immersive VR has potential benefits for teaching and learning accessible design and can be used more generally in diverse contexts of interior design pedagogy. While these results are promising, continued research to more effectively adopt the use of this technology in the interior design studio is needed.
... Recent VR prototypes and related 3D data types, deployed at academic libraries and in laboratories around the world, have shown the potential for these new technologies to function as research and instructional tools beyond the uncritical promotional hype of technocratic discourse (e.g., Lischer-Katz, Cook, and Boulden 2018;Pober and Cook 2016;Pober and Cook 2019). In this paper, we will first contextualize 3D/VR within the intellectual history of immersive media technologies, describe cases of technological innovation using 3D/VR technologies in academic library contexts, and finally, drawing on the previous sections, offer predictions about the role played by 3D/VR in the library of the future, in particular, describing areas in which libraries can serve as global leaders. ...
... In the field of architectural design, students who were able to virtually inhabit and navigate through their design solutions during the design process were found to be more likely to achieve a higher final project score (Angulo 2013). Students in interior design courses may also benefit from using VR when designing spaces, with research suggesting that using VR for design can support "scale perception, error recognition, and communication" activities (Pober and Cook 2019). Finally, neurosurgeons who worked with interactive, 3D monitors that employed stereoscopic depth cues were found to improve on their skills necessary for analyzing and evaluating vascular structures compared with neurosurgeons using 2D screens (Kersten-Pertel, et al. 2014). ...
Virtual reality (VR) and 3D scanning technologies are poised to expand the academic library’s mission by enhancing access to information resources and providing new analytic tools that enhance understanding of spatial information (e.g., artifacts, spaces, molecular structures, architectural designs, etc.). Using interfaces that engage the user’s body more fully than typical mouse and keyboard configurations, these technologies promote “embodied understanding,” a type of engagement with information resources that can promote learning and research in new ways. Contemporary head mounted displays (HMDs), which comprise the VR hardware that most end users today are familiar with today, are defined by their ability to track head and body movement while re-creating a sense of depth perception via stereoscopic displays. The other side of VR technology is the content, which may take the form of 3D models, 360 videos, or other forms of data captured from the world or created in the design studio. As 3D and VR become more widely used in educational and research contexts, libraries are taking the lead in providing access for a diverse range of users and for curating and preserving these complex new information resources for a variety of present and future uses and users. In light of these trends of increasing adoption of 3D/VR in libraries, it is important to understand the emergence of VR technologies within the history of other immersive media technologies in order to ensure that they are incorporated into library services and resources in ways that support fundamental library values. This requires developing a critical discourse around technologies at the time of their adoption that considers the historical context of VR so that librarians can avoid uncritically importing the epistemological assumptions and cultural biases of the technologists who designed them. As information professionals committed to the ALA Code of Ethics, librarians must ensure that these new technologies serve all library patrons and do not directly or indirectly erect new barriers to accessing the most current information resources. This chapter presents a brief genealogy of immersive media technologies that will provide the grounding for a critical engagement with emerging library technologies that is in dialogue with library values.
... Benefits include the ability to communicate to clients across vast distances while simultaneously appearing to inhabit a CAD design of a building project at human scale. Virtual reality design software has entered the classroom, including the field of architecture, that is impacting the critique process by allowing teams of students to visualize term projects at human scale alongside their classmates (Pober and Cook 2019). ...
... Because even the most convenient head-mounted displays require transport, setup, troubleshooting, upgrades, etc., it is necessary to provide a generous time window for completing VR-based undergraduate assignments. The authors have experimented with deadlines ranging from a week (after initial orientation) to 8 weeks, which reflects an iterative, multi-session format (Pober and Cook 2019). If headset hardware is to remain at or near the library (in circulation within designated VR areas, perhaps), then it is important to further account for hours of operation and onsite technical support. ...
Today’s virtual reality (VR) technologies enable students to traverse immersive learning environments populated with highly engaging course content that closely resembles real-world artifacts and sites, scientific specimens, and otherwise inaccessible training scenarios. The relative affordability of the latest generation of VR hardware has further increased the uptake of VR across academic, but careful consideration must be given to how the technology is deployed for classroom use. This paper draws on a range published research literature, and the authors’ experiences implementing VR in an academic library, to present guidelines and case studies that can be used by library practitioners to craft effective VR course assignments.
... In order to meet the professional training needs of interior design, the interior imitation real training system has been designed [4]. After the system login, it is divided into four modules: model construction, effect design, simulation demonstration and help interpretation [5]. The detailed design structure is shown in Figure 1. ...
... Using the appropriate layout elements in the model database in Unity 3D software, and the editing, positioning and editing interface in the platform is used to generate the interactive effect of the indoor space layout scene in line with the characteristics of children. Through the running window and binocular camera for collaborative roaming control, so as to realize the indoor taste of the children's room interactive layout scene [4]. According to the movement characteristics of children combined with the controller control, the virtual robot to replace the roaming control of the camera. ...
... With the development of the times and people's in-depth research on visual communication, the most basic elements of visual communication are given academically, namely, "vision" and "communication" [11]. "Vision," as the name suggests, refers to the images that the eyes can see, such as text, pictures, videos, buildings, abstract light, shadow, electro-optic symbols, and music symbols. ...
An important role of display visual design is advertising and advertising communication, which is an integrated medium, that is, a medium for communicating information. Visual communication design is the most direct way of information transmission in modern society. In today’s increasingly complex and diversified information, visual communication design has been more and more widely used in terms of form and function. On the display platform, the use of visual elements and the expression of visual communication design allows us to examine the different spatial experiences that visual communication design brings to people from a new perspective and adjust the way it is communicated, so as to find a scientific expression. This paper focused on the role of visual communication in display design and discussed its specific application in display design. The use of visual elements in the display space provides a new visual platform for spatial information, making the space design more connotative and cultural. For the smooth experience of media fusion design, it is necessary to ensure that information can be transmitted quickly and smoothly in every link of its processing. In the data write throughput experiment of the microperceptual data layer, the maximum write speed increased by 85.2% compared with the direct write method using the TSBPS method. The findings demonstrated that the IOT-HSQM model’s strategy of first queuing and then segmentation writes may more effectively fulfill the demands of high bandwidth than straight data transmission to HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System).
... Several studies have focused on the use of VR in education [6][7][8]. Other studies focus on VR in architectural design and education [9][10][11][12], urban applications of VR [13,14], and VR in architectural heritage [15][16][17]. It can be argued that the availability of consumer-level VR devices such as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and the increasing number of VR applications in architecture and design motivated researchers to investigate the potential of VR technology in design in recent years. ...
In this paper, we propose a VR design tool framework called DREAMSCAPE, which adopts a direct manipulation approach focusing on embody, experience, and manipulation activities in design. The framework defines a VR design process using intuitive controls without being limited by the preconceptions of conventional CAD systems. To establish and demonstrate the framework, we designed and developed a VR design tool called Dreamscape Bricks VR in Unreal Engine 4, using LEGO bricks as base components in a high-fidelity interactive design environment. We conducted user tests and administered questionnaires assessing usability, performance, and comfort. Results showed that the user experience of the tool is positive. The developed tool is expected to establish the abstract framework and provide insights into the future of VR design tools with implications on design education.
Scale has been a defining criterion of mapmaking for centuries. However, this criterion is fundamentally questioned by highly immersive virtual reality (VR) systems able to represent geographic environments at a high level of detail and, thus, providing the user with a feeling of being present in VR space. In this paper, we will use the concept of scale as a vehicle for discussing some of the main differences between immersive VR and non-immersive geovisualization products. Based on a short review of diverging meanings of scale we will propose possible approaches to the issue of both spatial and temporal scale in immersive VR. Our considerations shall encourage a more detailed treatment of the specific characteristics of immersive geovisualization to facilitate deeper conceptual integration of immersive and non-immersive visualization in the realm of cartography.
This paper describes the Virtual Ganjali Khan Project, an ongoing research initiative that is using 3D scanning and immersive virtual reality (VR) technologies to document a large historical landmark in the desert city of Kerman, Iran, the Ganjali Khan Complex. It describes the intellectual merits of these emerging technologies for preserving and providing new forms of access to cultural heritage sites, outlines the procedures of data collection and 3D processing, and describes the current work and next steps of the project. This paper will be of interest to scholars and institutions considering using 3D and VR technologies for supporting cultural heritage preservation, digital humanities projects, or other types of interdisciplinary research.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality research in the architecture field show a variety of possible uses of systems to accompany designers, laymen and decision makers in their architectural design process. This article provides a survey of VR and AR devices among a corpus of papers selected from conferences and journals on CAAD (Computer Aided Architectural Design). A closer look at some specific research projects highlights their potentials and limits, which formalize milestones for future challenges to address. Identifying advantages and drawbacks of those devices gave us insights to propose an alternative type of system, CORAULIS, including both VR and SAR technologies, in order to support collaborative design to be implemented in a pedagogical environment.
The use of virtual reality has its roots in visual communication science but disparate mechanisms and applications set it apart from the many tools of visualization. This paper reviews the use of virtual reality (VR) environments for research and teaching in the context of three disciplines: architecture, landscape architecture and environmental planning. As opposed to other uses of virtual environments, for example, in the health sciences or engineering, simulations using virtual reality theatres or labs in the three fields we explore are used to display inaccessible realities. VR environments are typically used in these fields for planned and designed realities, not yet existent or with nonexistent components. Each field has different reasons for spatial or temporal inaccessibility to reality, prompting the need and eventually the capability to achieve various levels of accuracy in the virtual setting. We describe current VR research opportunities and challenges in each discipline and emphasize what they can gain from sharing virtual reality systems for research and education.
Volume visualization is an important technique for analyzing datasets from a variety of different scientific domains. Volume data analysis is inherently difficult because volumes are three-dimensional, dense, and unfamiliar, requiring scientists to precisely control the viewpoint and to make precise spatial judgments. Researchers have proposed that more immersive (higher fidelity) VR systems might improve task performance with volume datasets, and significant results tied to different components of display fidelity have been reported. However, more information is needed to generalize these results to different task types, domains, and rendering styles. We visualized isosurfaces extracted from synchrotron microscopic computed tomography (SR-?CT) scans of beetles, in a CAVE-like display. We ran a controlled experiment evaluating the effects of three components of system fidelity (field of regard, stereoscopy, and head tracking) on a variety of abstract task categories that are applicable to various scientific domains, and also compared our results with those from our prior experiment using 3D texture-based rendering. We report many significant findings. For example, for search and spatial judgment tasks with isosurface visualization, a stereoscopic display provides better performance, but for tasks with 3D texture-based rendering, displays with higher field of regard were more effective, independent of the levels of the other display components. We also found that systems with high field of regard and head tracking improve performance in spatial judgment tasks. Our results extend existing knowledge and produce new guidelines for designing VR systems to improve the effectiveness of volume data analysis.
Cerebral vascular images obtained through angiography are used by neurosurgeons for diagnosis, surgical planning, and intraoperative guidance. The intricate branching of the vessels and furcations, however, make the task of understanding the spatial three-dimensional layout of these images challenging. In this paper, we present empirical studies on the effect of different perceptual cues (fog, pseudo-chromadepth, kinetic depth, and depicting edges) both individually and in combination on the depth perception of cerebral vascular volumes and compare these to the cue of stereopsis. Two experiments with novices and one experiment with experts were performed. The results with novices showed that the pseudo-chromadepth and fog cues were stronger cues than that of stereopsis. Furthermore, the addition of the stereopsis cue to the other cues did not improve relative depth perception in cerebral vascular volumes. In contrast to novices, the experts also performed well with the edge cue. In terms of both novice and expert subjects, pseudo-chromadepth and fog allow for the best relative depth perception. By using such cues to improve depth perception of cerebral vasculature, we may improve diagnosis, surgical planning, and intraoperative guidance.
We present the results of an evaluation of the ARCHAVE system, an immersive virtual reality environment for archaeological research. ARCHAVE is implemented in a Cave. The evaluation studied re- searchers analyzing lamp and coin finds throughout the excavation trenches at the Petra Great Temple site in Jordan. Experienced ar- chaeologists used our system to study excavation data, confirming existing hypotheses and postulating new theories they had not been able to discover without the system. ARCHAVE provided access to the excavation database, and researchers were able to examine the data in the context of a life-size representation of the present day architectural ruins of the temple. They also had access to a minia- ture model for site-wide analysis. Because users quickly became comfortable with the interface, they concentrated their efforts on examining the data being retrieved and displayed. The immersive VR visualization of the recovered information gave them the op- portunity to explore it in a new and dynamic way and, in several cases, enabled them to make discoveries that opened new lines of investigation about the excavation.
This paper describes the CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) virtual reality/scientific visualization system in detail and demonstrates that projection technology applied to virtual-reality goals achieves a system that matches the quality of workstation screens in terms of resolution, color, and flicker-free stereo. In addition, this format helps reduce the effect of common tracking and system latency errors. The off-axis perspective projection techniques we use are shown to be simple and straightforward. Our techniques for doing multi-screen stereo vision are enumerated, and design barriers, past and current, are described. Advantages and disadvantages of the projection paradigm are discussed, with an analysis of the effect of tracking noise and delay on the user. Successive refinement, a necessary tool for scientific visualization, is developed in the virtual reality context. The use of the CAVE as a one-to-many presentation device at SIGGRAPH '92 and Supercomputing '92 for computational science data is also mentioned.
Assembly planning and evaluation is an important component of the product design process in which details about how parts of a new product will be put together are formalized. A well designed assembly process should take into account various factors such as optimum assembly time and sequence, tooling and fixture requirements, ergonomics, operator safety, and accessibility, among others. Existing computer-based tools to support virtual assembly either concentrate solely on representation of the geometry of parts and fixtures and evaluation of clearances and tolerances or use simulated human mannequins to approximate human interaction in the assembly process. Virtual reality technology has the potential to support integration of natural human motions into the computer aided assembly planning environment (Ritchie et al. in Proc I MECH E Part B J Eng 213(5):461–474, 1999). This would allow evaluations of an assembler’s ability to manipulate and assemble parts and result in reduced time and cost for product design. This paper provides a review of the research in virtual assembly and categorizes the different approaches. Finally, critical requirements and directions for future research are presented.
The activities of opportunistic and involuntary bro wsing offer the potential for many of a user's late nt problems to be resolved serendipitously, with negligible cog nitive effort. In this paper we demonstrate how the design of two novel artefacts to support such behaviour was b ased on a set of Design Actions which were derived from a model of browsing behaviour in combination with a cognitive model of human visual information processi ng. We propose the concept of Design Actions as a way of avoiding the need for an interaction designer ass ociated with these and similar artefacts to understand the cognitive theories underlying them.
Conceptual design relies on internal representation for cognitive manipulation of the morphological properties of real or virtual objects. This study aims at investigating the nature of the perceptual information that could be retrieved in different representation modalities for learning a complex structure. An abstract and complex object was presented to two study populations, experts and non-experts, in three different representation modalities: 2D view; digital 3D model; real object. After viewing, observers had to draw some parts of the structure into a 2D reference frame. The results reveal a considerable performance advantage of digital 3D compared with real 3D in the expert population. The results are discussed in terms of the nature of the morphological cues made available in the different representation modalities.
We present a participant study that compares biological exploration tasks using volume renderings of laser confocal microscopy data across three environments which vary in level of immersion. For the tasks, data, and visualization approach used in our study, we found that subjects qualitatively preferred and quantitatively performed better in environments with greater levels of immersion. Subjects performed real-world biological data analysis tasks that emphasized understanding spatial relationships including characterizing the general features in a volume, identifying co-located features, and reporting geometric relationships such as whether clusters of cells were coplanar. After analyzing data in each environment, subjects were asked to choose which environment they wanted to analyze additional data sets in--subjects uniformly selected the Cave environment.
To enhance presence, facilitate sensory motor performance, and avoid disorientation or nausea, virtual-reality applications require the perception of a stable environment. End-end tracking latency (display lag) degrades this illusion of stability and has been identified as a major fault of existing virtual-environment systems. Oscillopsia refers to the perception that the visual world appears to swim about or oscillate in space and is a manifestation of this loss of perceptual stability of the environment. The effects of end-end latency and head velocity on perceptual stability in a virtual environment were investigated psychophysically. Subjects became significantly more likely to report oscillopsia during head movements when end-end latency or head velocity were increased. It is concluded that perceptual instability of the world arises with increased head motion and increased display lag. Oscillopsia is expected to be more apparent in tasks requiring real locomotion or rapid head movement.
As academic library collections are moved off site to make room for learning commons-type collaboration spaces, exploratory research processes (e.g. stacks browsing activities) are threatened. Given the range of benefits associated with chance information encounters in the physical book stacks, the disappearance of accessible collections is problematic. Fortunately, by focusing on embodied aspects of the physical browsing experience we can leverage emerging technologies to preserve instances of serendipitous information retrieval. Virtual reality, in this case, provides a browsing platform that allows for the type of search activity typically associated with research in the physical books stacks and preserves the benefits thereof.
This meta-analytic study focused on the quantitative integration and synthesis of the accumulated pedagogical research in undergraduate statistics education literature. These accumulated research studies compared the academic achievement of students who had been instructed using one of the various forms of small-group learning methods to those who had been instructed using lecture-based instruction. The meta-analytic results showed that cooperative, collaborative, and inquiry-based learning methods were used in college-level statistics courses. The results also showed that cooperative and collaborative learning methods supported the effectiveness of the small-group learning methods in improving students' academic achievement with an overall average effect-size of 0.60. In contrast, the effectiveness of inquiry-based learning was close to zero. This significant positive average effect-size indicated that using small-group learning methods in statistics classrooms could increase the achievement of college students, increasing the scores on a statistics exam from the 50th to the 73rd percentile. In addition, the multilevel analysis revealed that the effect sizes were influenced significantly by the publication-year of the studies, with the most recently published studies having lower effect sizes. The major implication of this study is that evidence-based research supports the effectiveness of active small-group learning methods in promoting students' achievement in statistics. © 2014 by Sema A. Kalaian and Rafa M. Kasim all rights reserved.
Virtual reality (VR) allows for highly-detailed observations, accurate behavior measurements, and systematic environmental manipulations under controlled laboratory circumstances. It therefore has the potential to be a valuable research tool for studies in human-environment interaction, such as building usability studies and post- as well as pre-occupancy building evaluation in architectural research and practice. In order to fully understand VR as a valid environmental representation, it is essential to examine to what extent not only user cognition and behavior, but also users' experiences are analogous in real and virtual environments. This work presents a multi-method approach with two studies that investigated the correspondence of building users' experience in a real conference center and a highly-detailed virtual model of the same building as well as a third study that virtually implemented systematic redesigns to the existing building layout. In the context of reporting users' experiential building evaluations, this article discusses the potential, prerequisites and opportunities for the implementation of virtual environments as an empirical research tool in the field of human-environment interaction. Based on quantitative data, few statistically significant differences between ratings of the real and the virtual building were found; however analyses based on qualitative data revealed differences relating to atmospherics. The main conclusion of this article is that VR has a strong potential to be used as an empirical research tool in psychological and architectural research and that future studies could supplement behavioral validation.
Objective
The purpose of this study was to determine if learning styles were an influencing factor on visualization skills among interior design students.
Research Design
A sample of 578 interior design students from thirteen universities who were enrolled in interior design courses between fall of 1997 and spring of 1999 completed a biographical data sheet, Kolb's Learning Style Inventory, and Isham's visualization skills test.
Analysis
Frequencies, means, and percentages were used to analyze the data. A two–way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test these hypotheses: (a) there is a relationship between students’ learning styles and visualization skills, and (b) factors that influence students’ visualization skills are their year in current major, preprofessional experience, and cultural background.
Key Findings
Results of this study revealed that there is a relationship between learning styles and visualization skills. Converger and Assimilator learning styles scored the highest on visualization tests. Year in major and cultural background were significant factors influencing skills. As students progress through their courses, visualization skills significantly improve, and the greatest improvement occurs between the second and fourth years. Asian/Asian American students scored highest on the visualization test.
Conclusions
Teaching methods need to be developed to enhance visualization skills for all learning styles for interior design students.
Virtual Reality (also known as Virtual Environment or VE) technology shows many promising applications in areas of training, medicine, architecture, astronomy, data handling, teleoperation, and entertainment. A potential threat to using this - technology is the mild to severe discomfort that some users experience during or after a VE session. Similar effects have been observed with flight and driving simulators. The simulator sickness literature forms a solid background for the study of sickness in virtual environments and many of the findings may be directly applicable. This report reviews literature concerning simulator sickness, motion sickness, and virtual environments. Forty factors that may be associated with simulator sickness in virtual environments are identified. These factors form three global categories: subject, simulator, and task. The known and predicted effects of these factors on sickness in VEs are discussed. A table summarizes the information presented in this report. The information can be used as a guide for future research concerning simulator sickness in virtual environments.
Spatial skills necessary to design and analyze orthographic drawings are sometimes lacking in interior design students. It was hypothesized that viewing computer generated and animated graphics could be useful in the instruction of such skills by replicating mental images of object rotation and dimensional transformation. The major purpose of this study was to investigate this effect and additionally to determine if particular types of visual presentations were more effective than others. Changes in scores on the Vandenburg/Kuse Mental Rotations Test, and an orthographic views identification test were used to determine these effects. The treatments consisted of viewing films of three architectural type graphic representations, in both color and wire frame form, rotating to top and side views, and changing from three to two dimensions. Statistical analysis consisted of a multivariate analysis of variance and Fishers' LSD post hoc. Results indicated that viewing the animated images did have a significant effect on increasing scores on the orthographic view identification test, but not the mental rotation tests. The order in which subjects viewed the films significantly affected their orthographic scores but viewing wire frame images first had a significant negative effect on subjects first mental rotation score.
This article provides a snapshot of immersive virtual reality (IVR) use for scientific visualization, in the context of the evolution of computing in general and of user interfaces in particular. The main thesis of this article is that IVR has great potential for dealing with the serious problem of exponentially growing scientific datasets. Our ability to produce large datasets both through numerical simulation and through data acquisition via sensors is outrunning our ability to make sense of those datasets. While our idea of “large” datasets used to be measured in hundreds of gigabytes, based at least in part on what we could easily store, manipulate, and display in real time, today's science and engineering are producing terabytes and soon even petabytes, both from observation via sensors and as output from numerical simulation. Clearly, visualization by itself will not solve the problem of understanding truly large datasets that would overwhelm both display capacity and the human visual system. We advocate a human–computer partnership that draws on the strengths of each partner, with algorithmic culling and feature-detection used to identify the small fraction of the data that should be visually examined in detail by the human. Our hope is that IVR will be a potent tool to let humans “see” patterns, trends, and anomalies in their data well beyond what they can do with conventional 3D desktop displays.
We present a survey of design issues for developing effective free-space three-dimensional (3D) user interfaces. Our survey is based upon previous work in 3D interaction, our experience in developing free-space interfaces, and our informal observations of test users. We illustrate our design issues using examples drawn from instances of 3D interfaces. For example, our first issue suggests that users have difficulty understanding three-dimensional space. We offer a set of strategies which may help users to better perceive a 3D virtual environment, including the use of spatial references, relative gesture, two-handed interaction, multisensory feedback, physical constraints, and head tracking. We describe interfaces which employ these strategies. Our major contribution is the synthesis of many scattered results, observations, and examples into a common framework. This framework should serve as a guide to researchers or systems builders who may not be familiar with design issues in spatial input. Where appropriate, we also try to identify areas in free-space D interaction which we see as likely candidates for additional research.
Although simulator sickness is known to increase with protracted exposure and to diminish with repeated sessions, limited systematic research has been performed in these areas. This study reviewed the few studies with sufficient information available to determine the effect that exposure duration and repeated exposure have on motion sickness. This evaluation confirmed that longer exposures produce more symptoms and that total sickness subsides over repeated exposures. Additional evaluation was performed to investigate the precise form of this relationship and to determine whether the same form was generalizable across varied simulator environments. The results indicated that exposure duration and repeated exposures are significantly linearly related to sickness outcomes (duration being positively related and repetition negatively related to total sickness). This was true over diverse systems and large subject pools. This result verified the generalizability of the relationships among sickness, exposure duration, and repeated exposures. Additional research is indicated to determine the optimal length of a single exposure and the optimal intersession interval to facilitate adaptation.
This article presents nearly 10 year's worth of System Usability Scale (SUS) data collected on numerous products in all phases of the development lifecycle. The SUS, developed by Brooke (1996)2.
Brooke , J. 1996. “SUS: A “quick and dirty” usability scale”. In Usability evaluation in industry, Edited by:
Jordan , P. W. ,
Thomas , B. A. Weerdmeester and
McClelland , I. L. 189–194. London: Taylor & Francis. View all references, reflected a strong need in the usability community for a tool that could quickly and easily collect a user's subjective rating of a product's usability. The data in this study indicate that the SUS fulfills that need. Results from the analysis of this large number of SUS scores show that the SUS is a highly robust and versatile tool for usability professionals. The article presents these results and discusses their implications, describes nontraditional uses of the SUS, explains a proposed modification to the SUS to provide an adjective rating that correlates with a given score, and provides details of what constitutes an acceptable SUS score.
Previous research has suggested that visual short-term memory has a fixed capacity of about four objects. However, we found that capacity varied substantially across the five stimulus classes we examined, ranging from 1.6 for shaded cubes to 4.4 for colors (estimated using a change detection task). We also estimated the information load per item in each class, using visual search rate. The changes we measured in memory capacity across classes were almost exactly mirrored by changes in the opposite direction in visual search rate (r2=.992 between search rate and the reciprocal of memory capacity). The greater the information load of each item in a stimulus class (as indicated by a slower search rate), the fewer items from that class one can hold in memory. Extrapolating this linear relationship reveals that there is also an upper bound on capacity of approximately four or five objects. Thus, both the visual information load and number of objects impose capacity limits on visual short-term memory.
Visualizing Archaeological Excavations based on Unity3D
- T Trautner