The goal of a visualization system is to facilitate dataset-driven insight discovery. But what if the insights are spurious? Features or patterns in visualizations can be perceived as relevant insights, even though they may arise from noise. We often compare visualizations to a mental image of what we are interested in: a particular trend, distribution or an unusual pattern. As more visualizations are examined and more comparisons are made, the probability of discovering spurious insights increases. This problem is well-known in Statistics as the multiple comparisons problem (MCP) but overlooked in visual analysis. We present a way to evaluate MCP in visualization tools by measuring the accuracy of user reported insights on synthetic datasets with known ground truth labels. In our experiment, over 60% of user insights were false. We show how a confirmatory analysis approach that accounts for all visual comparisons, insights and non-insights, can achieve similar results as one that requires a validation dataset.

Knowledge workers consume and annotate digital documents such as PDF files, videos, images and text notes - in some cases collaboratively - to form mental models and gain insight. An abundance of software solutions and utilities that were designed to assist users in stages of this process but not in the process as a whole, which makes knowledge work with documents unnecessarily inefficient. In this paper, we introduce ideas on how to streamline common knowledge worker tasks, such as collaboratively searching, gathering and freely arranging fragments of various media documents to gain understanding and then transforming emergent insights into interactive structured visualizations. Furthermore, we present NuSys, an integrated development environment (IDE) specialized for document-centric workflows, that implements the core of these ideas.

Interactively exploring multidimensional datasets requires frequent switching among a range of distinct but inter-related tasks (e.g., producing different visuals based on different column sets, calculating new variables, and observing the interactions between sets of data). Existing approaches either target specific different problem domains (e.g., data-transformation or data-presentation) or expose only limited aspects of the general exploratory process; in either case, users are forced to adopt coping strategies (e.g., arranging windows or using undo as a mechanism for comparison instead of using side-by-side displays) to compensate for the lack of an integrated suite of exploratory tools. PanoramicData (PD) addresses these problems by unifying a comprehensive set of tools for visual data exploration into a hybrid pen and touch system designed to exploit the visualization advantages of large interactive displays. PD goes beyond just familiar visualizations by including direct UI support for data transformation and aggregation, filtering and brushing. Leveraging an unbounded whiteboard metaphor, users can combine these tools like building blocks to create detailed interactive visual display networks in which each visualization can act as a filter for others. Further, by operating directly on relational-databases, PD provides an approachable visual language that exposes a broad set of the expressive power of SQL including functionally complete logic filtering, computation of aggregates and natural table joins. To understand the implications of this novel approach, we conducted a formative user study with both data and visualization experts. The results indicated that the system provided a fluid and natural user experience for probing multi-dimensional data and was able to cover the full range of queries that the users wanted to pose.

Developers spend significant time reading and navigating code fragments spread across multiple locations. The file-based nature of contemporary IDEs makes it prohibitively difficult to create and maintain a simultaneous view of such fragments. We propose a novel user interface metaphor for code understanding based on collections of lightweight, editable fragments called bubbles, which form concurrently visible working sets. We present the results of a qualitative usability evaluation, and the results of a quantitative study which indicates Code Bubbles significantly improved code understanding time, while reducing navigation interactions over a widely-used IDE, for two controlled tasks.

Today's integrated development environments (IDEs) are hampered by their dependence on files and file-based editing. We propose a novel user interface that is based on collections of lightweight editable fragments, called bubbles, which when grouped together form concurrently visible working sets. In this paper we describe the design of a prototype IDE user interface for Java based on working sets. A quantitative evaluation shows that developers could expect to view a sizeable number of functions concurrently with relatively few UI operations. A qualitative user evaluation with 23 professional developers indicates a high level of excitement, interest, and potential benefits and uses.

Today's integrated development environments (IDEs) are hampered by their dependence on files and file-based editing. We propose a novel user interface that is based on collections of lightweight editable fragments, called bubbles, which when grouped together form concurrently visible working sets. We describe the design of a prototype IDE user interface for Java based on working sets.

Students, scientists and engineers have to choose between the flexible, free-form input of pencil and paper and the computational power of Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) when solving mathematical problems. Hands-On Math is a multi-touch and pen-based system which attempts to unify these approaches by providing virtual paper that is enhanced to recognize mathematical notations as a means of providing in situ access to CAS functionality. Pages can be created and organized on a large pannable desktop, and mathematical expressions can be computed, graphed and manipulated using a set of uni- and bi-manual interactions which facilitate rapid exploration by eliminating tedious and error prone transcription tasks. Analysis of a qualitative pilot evaluation indicates the potential of our approach and highlights usability issues with the novel techniques used.

GestureBar is a novel, approachable UI for learning gestural interactions that enables a walk-up-and-use experience which is in the same class as standard menu and toolbar interfaces. GestureBar leverages the familiar, clean look of a common toolbar, but in place of executing commands, richly discloses how to execute commands with gestures, through animated images, detail tips and an out-of-document practice area. GestureBar's simple design is also general enough for use with any recognition technique and for integration with standard, non-gestural UI components. We evaluate GestureBar in a formal experiment showing that users can perform complex, ecologically valid tasks in a purely gestural system without training, introduction, or prior gesture experience when using GestureBar, discovering and learning a high percentage of the gestures needed to perform the tasks optimally, and significantly outperforming a state of the art crib sheet. The relative contribution of the major design elements of GestureBar is also explored. A second experiment shows that GestureBar is preferred to a basic crib sheet and two enhanced crib sheet variations.

We present an online system for recognizing handwritten mathematical matrices in the context of an interactive computational tool called MathPaper. Automatic segmentation and recognition of multiple expressions are supported based on a spacing algorithm that leverages recognized symbol identities, sizes, and relative locations of individual symbols. Matrices with ellipses can be recognized and instantiated with non-ellipsis elements. Both well- and non-well-formed matrices can also be recognized. Matrix elements can be any general mathematical expressions including imbedded matrices. Our recognizer also addresses the poor column alignment problem of handwritten matrices, and allows for slight horizontal overlaps between elements in neighboring columns and different rows.

We present the design of Lineogrammer, a diagram-drawing system motivated by the immediacy and fluidity of pencil-drawing. We attempted for Lineogrammer to feel like a modeless diagramming "medium" in which stylus input is immediately interpreted as a command, text label or a drawing element, and drawing elements snap to or sculpt from existing elements. An inferred dual representation allows geometric diagram elements, no matter how they were entered, to be manipulated at granularities ranging from vertices to lines to shapes. We also integrate lightweight tools, based on rulers and construction lines, for controlling higher-level diagram attributes, such as symmetry and alignment. We include preliminary usability observations to help identify areas of strength and weakness with this approach.

We present a practical technique for using a writer-independent recognition engine to improve the accuracy and speed while reducing the training requirements of a writer-dependent symbol recognizer. Our writer-dependent recognizer uses a set of binary classifiers based on the AdaBoost learning algorithm, one for each possible pairwise symbol comparison. Each classifier consists of a set of weak learners, one of which is based on a writer-independent handwriting recognizer. During online recognition, we also use the n-best list of the writer-independent recognizer to prune the set of possible symbols and thus reduce the number of required binary classifications. In this paper, we describe the geometric and statistical features used in our recognizer and our all-pairs classification algorithm. We also present the results of experiments that quantify the effect incorporating a writer-independent recognition engine into a writer-dependent recognizer has on accuracy, speed, and user training time.

We present Drawing on Air, a haptic-aided input technique for drawing controlled 3D curves through space. Drawing on Air addresses a control problem with current 3D modeling approaches based on sweeping movement of the hands through the air. While artists praise the immediacy and intuitiveness of these systems, a lack of control makes it nearly impossible to create 3D form beyond quick design sketches or gesture drawings. Drawing on Air introduces two new strategies for more controlled 3D drawing: one-handed drag drawing and two-handed tape drawing. Both approaches have advantages for drawing certain types of curves. We describe a tangent preserving method for transitioning between the two techniques while drawing. Haptic-aided redrawing and line weight adjustment while drawing are also supported in both approaches. In a quantitative user study evaluation by illustrators, the one and two-handed techniques performed at roughly the same level, and both significantly outperformed freehand drawing and freehand drawing augmented with a haptic friction effect. We present the design and results of this experiment as well as user feedback from artists and 3D models created in a style of line illustration for challenging artistic and scientific subjects.

We present mathematical sketching , a novel, pen-based, modeless gestural interaction paradigm for mathematics problem solving. Mathematical sketching derives from the familiar pencil-and-paper process of drawing supporting diagrams to facilitate the formulation of mathematical expressions; however, with a mathematical sketch, users can also leverage their physical intuition by watching their hand-drawn diagrams animate in response to continuous or discrete parameter changes in their written formulas. Diagram animation is driven by implicit associations that are inferred, either automatically or with gestural guidance, from mathematical expressions, diagram labels, and drawing elements. The modeless nature of mathematical sketching enables users to switch freely between modifying diagrams or expressions and viewing animations. Mathematical sketching can also support computational tools for graphing, manipulating and solving equations; initial feedback from a small user group of our mathematical sketching prototype application, MathPad 2 , suggests that it has the potential to be a powerful tool for mathematical problem solving and visualization.

Presents a novel class of virtual reality input devices that combine pop-through buttons with 6-DOF trackers. Compared to similar devices that use conventional buttons, pop-through devices double the number of potential discrete interaction modes, since each button has two activation states corresponding to light and firm pressure. This additional state per button provides a foundation to address a range of shortcomings with conventional virtual environment (VE) input devices that includes reducing the physical dexterity required to perform interactions, reducing the cognitive complexity of some compound tasks and enabling the design of less obtrusive devices without sacrificing expressive power. Specifically, we present two novel input devices: the FingerSleeve was designed to be minimally obtrusive physically, whereas the TriggerGun was designed to be physically similar to, yet more functional than a conventional hand-held trigger device. Further, we present a set of novel navigation and interaction techniques that leverage the capabilities of our pop-through button devices to improve interaction quality and provide insight into harnessing the potential of pop-through buttons for other tasks. Finally, we discuss how we incorporated one of our devices into a real application.

This paper presents a set of interaction techniques for hands-free multi-scale navigation through virtual environments. We believe that hands-free navigation, unlike the majority of navigation techniques based on hand motions, has the greatest potential for maximizing the interactivity of virtual environments since navigation modes are offloaded from modal hand gestures to more direct motions of the feet and torso. Not only are the users' hands freed to perform tasks such as modeling, notetaking and object manipulation, but we also believe that foot and torso movements may inherently be more natural for some navigation tasks. The particular interactions that we developed include a leaning technique for moving small and medium distances, a foot-gesture controlled Step WIM that acts as a floor map for moving larger distances, and a viewing technique that enables a user to view a full 360 degrees in only a three-walled semi-immersive environment by subtly amplifying the mapping between th...

We present a range of novel interactions enabled by a simple modification in the design of a computer mouse. By converting each mouse button to pop through tactile push-buttons, similar to the focus/shutter-release buttons used in many cameras, users can feel, and the computer can sense, two distinct "clicks" corresponding to pressing lightly and pressing firmly to pop through. Despite the prototypical status of our hardware and software implementations, our current pop through mouse interactions are compelling and warrant further investigation. In particular, we demonstrate that pop through buttons not only yield an additional button activation state that is composable with, or even preferable to, techniques such as double-clicking, but also can endow a qualitatively novel user experience when meaningfully and consistently applied. We propose a number of software guidelines that may provide a consistent, systemic benefit; for example, light pressure may invoke default interaction (short menu), and firm pressure may supply more detail (long menu).

We describe the Scene‐Graph‐As‐Bus technique (SGAB), the first step in a staircase of solutions for sharing software components for virtual environments. The goals of SGAB are to allow, with minimal effort, independently‐designed applications to share component functionality; and for multiple users to share applications designed for single users.This paper reports on the SGAB design for transparently conjoining different applications by unifying the state information contained in their scene graphs. SGAB monitors and maps changes in the local scene graph of one application to a neutral scene graph representation (NSG), distributes the NSG changes over the network to remote peer applications, and then maps the NSG changes to the local scene graph of the remote application. The fundamental contribution of SGAB is that both the local and remote applications can be completely unaware of each other; that is, both applications can interoperate without code or binary modification despite each having no knowledge of networking or interoperability.

The ability to specify non planar 3D curves is of fundamental importance in 3D modelling and animation systems. Effective techniques for specifying such curves using 2D input devices are desirable, but existing methods typically require the user to edit the curve from several viewpoints. We present a novel method for specifying 3D curves with 2D input from a single viewpoint. The user rst draws the curve as it appears from the current viewpoint, and then draws its shadow on the oor plane. The system correlates the curve with its shadow to compute the curve's 3D shape. This method is more natural than existing methods in that it leverages skills that many artists and designers have developed from work with pencil and paper.

D interaction with a computer is hard. As human interaction in the real world is quite dependent on haptics, we believe that adding haptics will alleviate many of the problems of 3D interaction with a computer. The naive approach to incorporating haptics would be to simply find existing objects and imitate them. This, however, would not seem to adequately leverage what is possible with a rea- sonably general force feedback device, as it does not take advantage of the ability to provide forces that are not physically based, or to simulate objects and behavior that could have been physically real- ized but weren't, or which would have been prohibitively difficult to physically realize. From our extensive experience with design- ing haptic computer user interfaces and using haptic interfaces in the real world we have abstracted from those interactions certain qualities which we present in this paper. In addition, this paper demonstrates how to use these qualities in the analysis and design of a suite of 3D haptic widgets, most of which are novel and many of which include non-physically based forces.

We present a novel approach to controlling a virtual 3D camera with a 2D mouse or stylus input device that is based on gestural interaction.Our approach to 3D camera manipulation, UniCam, requires only a single-button stylus or mouse to directly invoke specific camera operations within a single 3D view.No 2D widgets or keyboard modifiers are necessary.By gesturally invoking all camera functionality, UniCam reduces the modal nature of typical desktop 3D graphics applications, since remaining mouse or stylus buttons can be used for other application functionality.In addition, the particular choice and refinement of UniCam controls efficiently enables a wide range of camera manipulation tasks, including translation in three-dimensions, orbiting about a point, animated focusing on an object surface, animated navigation around an object, zooming in upon a region, and saving and restoring viewpoints.UniCam's efficiency derives primarily from improved transitions between techniques and to a lesser degree from adaptations of existing techniques.Although we have conducted no formal user evaluations, UniCam is the result of years of iterative development with approximately one hundred users.During this time more conventional modifier key and menu-based implementations were implemented and either refined or rejected.Informally, users appear to require a few hours of training to become proficient with UniCam controls, but then typically choose them almost exclusively even when widget-based controls, such as those provided by an Inventor viewer, are simultaneously available.

Article The music notepad Share on Authors: Andrew Forsberg Brown University, Department of Computer Science, Providence, RI Brown University, Department of Computer Science, Providence, RIView Profile , Mark Dieterich Brown University, Department of Computer Science, Providence, RI Brown University, Department of Computer Science, Providence, RIView Profile , Robert Zeleznik Brown University, Department of Computer Science, Providence, RI Brown University, Department of Computer Science, Providence, RIView Profile Authors Info & Claims UIST '98: Proceedings of the 11th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technologyNovember 1998 Pages 203–210https://doi.org/10.1145/288392.288608Published:01 November 1998 51citation901DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations51Total Downloads901Last 12 Months16Last 6 weeks4 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

This paper describes preliminary work in a project to add force feedback to user interface elements of the X Window System in an attempt to add true "feel" to the window system's "look and feel".Additions include adding ridges around icons and menu items to aid interaction, alignment guides for moving windows, and other enhancements to window manipulation.The motivation for this system is the observation that people naturally have many skills for and intuitions about a very rich environment of interaction forces in the non-computer world; however, these skills are largely unused in computer applications.We expect that haptic modifications to conventional graphical user interfaces, such as those we present, can lead to gains in performance, intuition, learnability, and enjoyment of the interface.This paper describes details of the implementation of the haptic window system elements, in addition to higher-level haptic design principles and informal observations of users of the system.

This paper presents a set of interaction techniques for use in headtracked immersive virtual environments.With these techniques, the user interacts with the 2D projections that 3D objects in the scene make on his image plane.The desktop analog is the use of a mouse to interact with objects in a 3D scene based on their projections on the monitor screen.Participants in an immersive environment can use the techniques we discuss for object selection, object manipulation, and user navigation in virtual environments.

We explore a range of techniques that use two hands to control two independent cursors to perform operations in 3D desktop applications. Based on research results in 2D applications, we believe that two-handed input provides the potential for creating more efficient and more fluid interfaces, especially for tasks that are context-sensitive or that have many degrees of freedom. These tasks appear frequently in 3D applications and are commonly broken down into a series of sequential operations, each controlling fewer degrees of freedom -- even though this may dramatically change the character of the task. However, two-handed interaction, in theory, makes it possible to perform the same tasks using half the number of sequential steps since two previously sequential operations can be performed simultaneously. In addition, many forms of two-handed interaction may be simpler to use and to understand since they correspond to common interactions in the physical world. It is significant when ta...

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We present two novel techniques for effectively selecting objects in immersive virtual environments using a single 6 DOF magnetic tracker. These techniques advance the state of the art in that they exploit the participant's visual frame of reference and fully utilize the position and orientation data from the tracker to improve accuracy of the selection task. Preliminary results from pilot usability studies validate our designs. Finally, the two techniques combine to compensate for each other's weaknesses. KEYWORDS: interaction, selection, immersive virtual environments, direct-manipulation, 3D widgets. INTRODUCTION Selection techniques indicate to an application which object or objects a participant wishes to interact with in a virtual environment (VE). We present two novel techniques for selecting objects in a VE called aperture and orientation. The techniques apply to our test application, an immersive VE for visualizing a computational fluid-dynamics dataset in which users selec...

This paper presents the architecture for an extensible toolkit used in construction and rapid prototyping of three dimensional interfaces, interactive illustrations, and three dimensional widgets. The toolkit provides methods for the direct manipulation of 3D primitives which can be linked together through a visual programming language to create complex constrained behavior. Features of the toolkit include the ability to visually build, encapsulate, and parameterize complex models, and impose limits on the models. The toolkit's constraint resolution technique is based on a dynamic object model similar to those in prototype delegation object systems. The toolkit has been used to rapidly prototype tools for mechanical modelling, scientific visualization, construct 3D widgets, and build mathematical illustrations.

Introduction Today's user interfaces for most 3D graphics applications still depend heavily on 2D GUIs and keyboard input. There have been several recent attempts both to extend these user interfaces into 3D and to describe intermediary 3D widgets 1 that control application objects [3; 4; 5; 7; 13; 15]. Even though this style of interaction is a straightforward extension of interaction through intermediary 2D widgets such as dials or sliders, we know of no efforts to develop interactive 3D toolkits akin to UIMX or Garnet [11]. The Brown Graphics Group has had considerable experience using its Unified Graphics Architecture (UGA) system [16] to script 3D widgets such as deformation racks [14], interactive shadows [9], parameterized models, and other constrained 3D geometries. Using this experience, we have developed an interactive toolkit to facilitate the visual programming of the geometry and behavior of such interactive models. The toolkit provides both a co

Article Three-dimensional widgets Share on Authors: Brookshire D. Conner View Profile , Scott S. Snibbe View Profile , Kenneth P. Herndon View Profile , Daniel C. Robbins View Profile , Robert C. Zeleznik View Profile , Andries van Dam View Profile Authors Info & Claims I3D '92: Proceedings of the 1992 symposium on Interactive 3D graphicsJune 1992 Pages 183–188https://doi.org/10.1145/147156.147199Online:01 June 1992Publication History 170citation1,946DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations170Total Downloads1,946Last 12 Months70Last 6 weeks6 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

It is often difficult in computer graphics applications to understand spatial relationships between objects in a 3D scene or effect changes to those objects without specialized visualization and manipulation techniques. We present a set of three-dimensional tools (widgets) called “shadows” that not only provide valuable perceptual cues about the spatial relationships between objects, but also provide a direct manipulation interface to constrained transformation techniques. These shadow widgets provide two advances over previous techniques. First, they provide high correlation between their own geometric feedback and their effects on the objects they control. Second, unlike some other 3D widgets, they do not obscure the objects they control.

We present an interactive modeling and animation system that facilitates the integration of a variety of simulation and animation paradigms. This system permits the modeling of diverse objects that change in shape, appearance, and behaviour over time. Our system thus extends modeling tools to include animation controls. Changes can be effected by various methods of control, including scripted, gestural, and behavioral specification. The system is an extensible testbed that supports research in the interaction of disparate control methods embodied in controller objects. This paper discusses some of the issues involved in modeling such interactions and the mechanisms implemented to provide solutions to some of these issues.The system's object-oriented architecture uses delegation hierarchies to let objects change all of their attributes dynamically. Objects include displayable objects, controllers, cameras, lights, renderers, and user interfaces. Techniques used to obtain interactive performance include the use of data-dependency networks, lazy evaluation, and extensive caching to exploit inter- and intra-frame coherency.