Summary
For the purpose of full disclosure, I was not able to download the paper using the link here: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3126613 (it asked for money) so I used the description of the paper provided in this youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTD9xUFeQgo).
The researchers of this paper design a virtual reality setup where users are able to manipulate graphs and examine their data. The researchers wanted to provide users the ability to visualize data in 3-dimensional ways and be able to adjust the axes, type of graph, etc. in a more hands-on approach.
Reflection
I found the tool created by the researchers to be quite interesting since it reminded me of the scene in the movie Iron Man where Tony Stark is designing the suit. Coming from a data science background, I am interested in data analytics and different methods of visualizing data. I believe having such a tool may be helpful in some unique cases but overall, I’m not quite certain it would provide any additional benefits to end users.
The tool designed by the users seems to have the ability to create fairly interesting graphs but most of the graphs can be generate using any 2-d graph generating tool. I found the method of joining axes to create graphs quite interesting and that may be the one area that could make this tool helpful. I just think virtual reality right now is quite limited and doesn’t have the capability or specs to make very impactful tools.
This project seems very distinct from my own research project. The only similarity between this project and my own is that this project created a tool to solve an existing problem. Much the same way, my project centers around a platform which will be leverage by students to organize notes collaboratively.
The researcher of this project discussed some of the limitations of the project which include the limited selection of graphs that can be created. I think one area where this project could be expanded is if the tool allowed multiple people to work on the data together. This would allow people to discuss certain trends or anomalies in the data. Additionally, the users would be able to discuss the data together even though they could be sitting hours away from each other. This project can also be expanded beyond just data exploration. This would be a great tool for users to explore mockups of designs especially in areas such as interior design, architecture, etc. I think the tool has more beneficial use in those fields rather than data exploration. I also think this tool would be quite beneficial to teach students some mathematical concepts. There are quite a few mathematical concepts such as gradient descent which are challenging to grasp. A tool like this would thus enable students to visually see these concepts and therefore better understand the underlying concepts.