Billboard top 100 Data Vis

Info

Visualization is a critical step to understand a complex dataset and many approaches have been taken on to visualize the data but till now, so many methods were in conventional 2D screen. Here we propose to visualize the data in 3D space using Virtual Reality headset. We have also mentioned the design process which helps a designer facilitate his idea before start developing it. We also create some different interactions in the Virtual Reality environment as it is different from the conventional interactions of using mouse and keyboards.

Till now visualizing complex network data was mostly focused on 2D screen with giving a slight dimension of 3D as the prospective view. Nevertheless, Virtual Reality is an immerging technology with countless possibilities. It gives a whole new way to design the complex data and newer ways to interact with it. It gives the feeling of immersion to the user.

In our project we have focused on 3 main things. First is the design process of the visualizing the data structure and for our visualization we have taken the Billboard top 100 data from year 1965 to 2015. We have given a method of design process in VR using TiltBrush. Second part is the visualization of the data in the VR. We had done the lyrics analysis of the data and visualized it to get the picture of the most used words over the year and how it connects to each year. Third contribution is the interaction with this data as the person has a freedom to interact with 50 different objects and how that complexity be reduced and can be done efficiently was an interesting question for us and we ended up making simple interaction where a person can point at an object and see the connection but at the same time point at the different object the user can see how the dynamic of connection has changed between objects.

The user studies taken has shown that the visualization done is fairly intuitive and taking up the network data visualization and rendering in 3D where you can move between the data is really a different experience for the user.

Collaborators

Zooey, Angus Forbes

Technology used

Unity, VR (Oculus Rift, HTC Vive)