Extending Measurement Science to Interactive Visualisation Environments

Abstract

We describe three classes of tools to turn visualizations into a visual laboratory to interactively measure and analyze scientific data. We move the normal activities that scientists perform to understand their data into the visualization environment, which becomes our virtual laboratory, combining the qualitative with the quantitative. We use representation, interactive selection, quantification, and display to add quantitative measurement methods, input tools, and output tools. These allow us to obtain numerical information from each visualization. The exact form that the tools take within each of our three categories depends on features present in the data, hence each is manifested differently in different situations. We illustrate the three approaches with a variety of case studies from immersive to desktop environments that demonstrate the methods used to obtain quantitative knowledge interactively from visual objects.