On the Use of Virtual Reality in Visualizing Interactive Network Models for Big Data

The current revolution in technology forces most daily life systems to generate large-scale data. Understanding such data is not an easy task due to its size and complexity. Therefore, data visualization has played a key role in understanding our data more clearly. Moreover, most of the available approaches for data visualization are considered traditional that deal with data in a 2D way. Furthermore, one of the modern methods for data visualization is converting data into network models that include nodes and edges. This kind of visualization has been proved as an efficient way of analyzing large-scale data. On the other hand, with the advent of virtual reality technology, data can be visualized and analyzed in an interactive and 3D way. Hence, this research investigates the integration of virtual reality technology and complex networks, and how it can generate interactive data visualization models. This research provides a novel investigation of the literature by presenting the modernist methods that enable researchers to interact with their data. Also, in this work, a 3D VR-based biological network model is built. Finally, this work may open the horizon to metaverse developers in developing interactive network models in the future (e.g., biological networks, social networks, etc.).