Comparing and Combining Virtual Hand and Virtual Ray Pointer Interactions for Data Manipulation in Immersive...

In this work, we evaluate two standard interaction techniques for Immersive Analytics environments: virtual hands, with actions such as grabbing and stretching, and virtual ray pointers, with actions assigned to controller buttons. We also consider a third option: seamlessly integrating both modes and allowing the user to alternate between them without explicit mode switches. Easy-to-use interaction with data visualizations in Virtual Reality enables analysts to intuitively query or filter the data, in addition to the benefit of multiple perspectives and stereoscopic 3D display. While many VR-based Immersive Analytics systems employ one of the studied interaction modes, the effect of this choice is unknown. Considering that each has different advantages, we compared the three conditions through a controlled user study in the spatio-temporal data domain. We did not find significant differences between hands and ray-casting in task performance, workload, or interactivity patterns. Yet, 60% of the participants preferred the mixed mode and benefited from it by choosing the best alternative for each low-level task. This mode significantly reduced completion times by 23% for the most demanding task, at the cost of a 5% decrease in overall success rates.