Evaluating Navigation Techniques for 3D Graph Visualizations in Virtual Reality

Research into how virtual reality (VR) can be a beneficial technology for new and emerging large, complex data visualizations for data scientists is ongoing. In this paper, we evaluate three-dimensional VR navigation technique for data visualizations and test their effectiveness with a large graph visualization. We evaluate two prominent navigation techniques employed in VR (Teleportation and One-Handed Flying) against two less common methods (Two-Handed Flying and Worlds In Miniature) and evaluate their performance and effectiveness through a series of tasks. We found Steering Patterns (One-Handed Flying and Two-Handed Flying) to be faster and preferred by participants for completing searching tasks in comparision to Teleportation. Worlds-In-Miniature was the least physically demanding of the navigations, and was preferred by participants for tasks that required an overview of the graph such as triangle counting.