Building a Distributed XR Immersive Environment for data Visualization

We present a novel way to support business organizations’ decision-making in the context of analysis of network data sets. For such a purpose we built a mixed-reality, multi-user platform, which we named Aroaro and can be deployed on different virtual reality and augmented reality devices. In Aroaro, users can experience data visualization, either individually or as part of a team. With a set of lab tasks designed to lead lab subjects to analyze the network information while immersing into the rich virtual environment, our approach belongs to the nascent area of immersive analytics. We assume a business unit has already procured some network data set and been tasked with problems that need to reveal information about the network's connectivity properties. This paper is concerned with how a business unit achieves problem solving (decisionmaking) when relying on immersive analytics. Our approach combines a high-quality virtual environment such as Aroaro, its data visualization engine and the analytics afforded by concepts of network centrality in a network. We report on preliminary results of having lab subjects experience two visualization environments: a 3D visualization system on a 2D-flat screen and our mixed-reality, multi-user platform for network data visualization.