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1. Feel the Globe: Enhancing the Perception of Immersive Spherical Visualizations with Tangible Proxies

   https://doi.org/10.1109/VR.2019.8797869  

   Englmeier, David; Schonewald, Isabel; Butz, Andreas; Hollerer, Tobias (March 2019, Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality 2019, NIDIT: Workshop on Novel Input Devices and Interaction Techniques)

   Recent developments in the commercialization of virtual reality open up many opportunities for enhancing human interaction with three-dimensional objects and visualizations. Spherical visualizations allow for convenient exploration of certain types of data. Our tangible sphere, exactly aligned with the sphere visualizations shown in VR, implements a very natural way of interaction and utilizes senses and skills trained in the real world. In a lab study, we investigate the effects of the perception of actually holding a virtual spherical visualization in hands. As use cases, we focus on surface visualizations that benefit from or require a rounded shape. We compared the usage of two differently sized acrylic glass spheres to a related interaction technique that utilizes VR controllers as proxies. On the one hand, our work is motivated by the ability to create in VR a tangible, lightweight, handheld spherical display that can hardly be realized in reality. On the other hand, gaining insights about the impact of a fully tangible embodiment of a virtual object on task performance, comprehension of patterns, and user behavior is important in its own right. After a description of the implementation we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of our approach, taking into account different handheld spherical displays utilizing outside and inside projection. 

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2. A Tangible Spherical Proxy for Object Manipulation in Augmented Reality

   https://doi.org/10.1109/VR46266.2020.00-63  

   Englmeier, David; Dorner, Julia; Butz, Andreas; Hollerer, Tobias (March 2020, IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), 2020)

   In this paper, we explore how a familiarly shaped object can serve as a physical proxy to manipulate virtual objects in Augmented Reality (AR) environments. Using the example of a tangible, handheld sphere, we demonstrate how irregularly shaped virtual objects can be selected, transformed, and released. After a brief description of the implementation of the tangible proxy, we present a buttonless interaction technique suited to the characteristics of the sphere. In a user study (N = 30), we compare our approach with three different controller-based methods that increasingly rely on physical buttons. As a use case, we focused on an alignment task that had to be completed in mid-air as well as on a flat surface. Results show that our concept has advantages over two of the controller-based methods regarding task completion time and user ratings. Our findings inform research on integrating tangible interaction into AR experiences. 

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3. Effects of Sensory Feedback and Collider Size on Reach-to-Grasp Coordination in Haptic-Free Virtual Reality

   https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2021.648529  

   Furmanek, Mariusz P.; Mangalam, Madhur; Lockwood, Kyle; Smith, Andrea; Yarossi, Mathew; Tunik, Eugene (August 2021, Frontiers in Virtual Reality)

   null (Ed.)

   Technological advancements and increased access have prompted the adoption of head- mounted display based virtual reality (VR) for neuroscientific research, manual skill training, and neurological rehabilitation. Applications that focus on manual interaction within the virtual environment (VE), especially haptic-free VR, critically depend on virtual hand-object collision detection. Knowledge about how multisensory integration related to hand-object collisions affects perception-action dynamics and reach-to-grasp coordination is needed to enhance the immersiveness of interactive VR. Here, we explored whether and to what extent sensory substitution for haptic feedback of hand-object collision (visual, audio, or audiovisual) and collider size (size of spherical pointers representing the fingertips) influences reach-to-grasp kinematics. In Study 1, visual, auditory, or combined feedback were compared as sensory substitutes to indicate the successful grasp of a virtual object during reach-to-grasp actions. In Study 2, participants reached to grasp virtual objects using spherical colliders of different diameters to test if virtual collider size impacts reach-to-grasp. Our data indicate that collider size but not sensory feedback modality significantly affected the kinematics of grasping. Larger colliders led to a smaller size-normalized peak aperture. We discuss this finding in the context of a possible influence of spherical collider size on the perception of the virtual object’s size and hence effects on motor planning of reach-to-grasp. Critically, reach-to-grasp spatiotemporal coordination patterns were robust to manipulations of sensory feedback modality and spherical collider size, suggesting that the nervous system adjusted the reach (transport) component commensurately to the changes in the grasp (aperture) component. These results have important implications for research, commercial, industrial, and clinical applications of VR. 

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4. Exploring Eye Gaze Visualization Techniques for Identifying Distracted Students in Educational VR

   https://doi.org/10.1109/VR46266.2020.00009  

   Rahman, Yitoshee; Asish, Sarker M.; Fisher, Nicholas P.; Bruce, Ethan C.; Kulshreshth, Arun K.; Borst, Christoph W. (March 2020, 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR))

   Virtual Reality (VR) headsets with embedded eye trackers are appearing as consumer devices (e.g. HTC Vive Eye, FOVE). These devices could be used in VR-based education (e.g., a virtual lab, a virtual field trip) in which a live teacher guides a group of students. The eye tracking could enable better insights into students’ activities and behavior patterns. For real-time insight, a teacher’s VR environment can display student eye gaze. These visualizations would help identify students who are confused/distracted, and the teacher could better guide them to focus on important objects. We present six gaze visualization techniques for a VR-embedded teacher’s view, and we present a user study to compare these techniques. The results suggest that a short particle trail representing eye trajectory is promising. In contrast, 3D heatmaps (an adaptation of traditional 2D heatmaps) for visualizing gaze over a short time span are problematic. 

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5. Electronic Visualization Laboratory's 50th Anniversary Retrospective: Look to the Future, Build on the Past

   https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00421  

   Johnson, A; Renambot, L; Marai, GE; Tsoupikova, D; Papka, M; Long, L; Plepys, D; Talandis, J; Brown, M; Leigh, J; et al (January 2024, PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality)

   September 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). EVL's introduction of the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment in 1992, the first widely replicated, projection-based, walk-in, virtual-reality (VR) system in the world, put EVL at the forefront of collaborative, immersive data exploration and analytics. However, the journey did not begin then. Since its founding in 1973, EVL has been developing tools and techniques for real-time, interactive visualizations—pillars of VR. But EVL's culture is also relevant to its successes, as it has always been an interdisciplinary lab that fosters teamwork, where each person's expertise contributes to the development of the necessary tools, hardware, system software, applications, and human interface models to solve problems. Over the years, as multidisciplinary collaborations evolved and advanced scientific instruments and data resources were distributed globally, the need to access and share data and visualizations while working with colleagues, local and remote, synchronous and asynchronous, also became important fields of study. This paper is a retrospective of EVL's past 50 years that surveys the many networked, immersive, collaborative visualization and VR systems and applications it developed and deployed, as well as lessons learned and future plans. 

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