DOE OSTI · 1821406
Structure Perception in 3D Point Clouds: Preprint
Abstract
Understanding human perception is critical to the design of ef- fective visualizations. The relative benefits of using 2D versus 3D techniques for data visualization is a complex decision space, with varying levels of uncertainty and disagreement in both the liter- ature and in practice. This study aims to add easily reproducible, empirical evidence on the role of depth cues in perceiving structures or patterns in 3D point clouds. We describe a method to synthesize a 3D point cloud that contains a 3D structure, where 2D projec- tions of the data strongly resemble a Gaussian distribution. We performed a within-subjects structure identification study with 128 participants that compared scatterplot matrices (canonical 2D projections) and 3D scatterplots under three types of motion: rota- tion, xy-translation, and z-translation. We found that users could consistently identify three separate hidden structures under ro- tation, while those structures remained hidden in the scatterplot matrices and under translation. This work contributes a set of 3D point clouds that provide definitive examples of 3D patterns per- ceptible in 3D scatterplots under rotation but imperceptible in 2D scatterplots.
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Gruchalla, Kenny (ORCID:0000000281551175), Raghupathi, Sunand (ORCID:000000028061076X), Brunhart-Lupo, Nicholas. 2021-09-15. Structure Perception in 3D Point Clouds: Preprint. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1821406
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