In traditional visual analysis, brushing and linking is commonly used to visually connect multiple views using highlighting techniques. However, brushing and linking has rarely been used in situated analytics, which uses visualizations to analyze data in the context of physical referents. In situated analytics, data representations must be visually linked to real-world objects. Previous work has assessed situated brushing and linking in a virtual reality simulation of a supermarket scenario. Here, we replicate and extend the previous approach by studying brushing and linking in an actual physical space with augmented reality, while further improving the highlighting techniques. Using a video see-through display, we compare augmented reality with virtual reality. Results suggest that AR performs better in time and accuracy, but the effectiveness of the techniques varies by condition. These results provide a new framing of how the real-world stimuli matter in situated analytics.

Trends are changes in variables or attributes over time, often represented by line plots or scatterplot variants, with time being one of the axes. Interpreting tendencies and estimating trends require observing the lines or points behavior regarding increments, decrements, or both (reversals) in the value of the observed variable. Previous work assessed variants of scatterplots like Animation, Small Multiples, and Overlaid Trails for comparing the effectiveness of trends representation using large and small displays and found differences between them. In this work, we study how best to enable the analyst to explore and perform temporal trend tasks with these same techniques in immersive virtual environments. We designed and conducted a user study based on the approaches followed by previous works regarding visualization and interaction techniques, as well as tasks for comparisons in three-dimensional settings. Results show that Overlaid Trails are the fastest overall, followed by Animation and Small Multiples, while accuracy is task-dependent. We also report results from interaction measures and questionnaires.