Immersive analytics interactive authoring tool - interacting with data in immersive environments

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Data analysis is increasingly becoming an important factor in a wide variety of different industries. Professionals and analysts must make sense of large amounts of complex data and leverage visual and computational tools to do so. However, existing desktop analytic tools are restricted by the limited size and 2D nature of current computer displays and fail to support spatial thinking and analysis. The visualization of data in immersive environments (Virtual-, Augmented-, and Mixed-reality) and interaction with data can enhance data exploration and understanding. We intend to build a commercial Interactive Authoring Tool (IAT) for immersive analytics applications that enables data interaction in immersive environments. Our system provides tools for interactively authoring and browsing augmented reality visualizations of both abstract and geospatial data. This includes mechanisms for interactively loading raw data and transforming data files into complex three-dimensional visualizations that can be explored using virtual- and augmented-reality hardware. Once these visualizations are uploaded to augmented reality devices (including head-mounted displays or AR-compatible tablets) users can position, organize, and examine these data visualizations in-situ within real physical spaces such as offices, meeting rooms, and field sites. This approach provides greater spatial resolution than traditional on-screen displays and also supports natural physical navigation and manipulation. Additionally, users can leverage physical space to organize their data and analyses, moving important data and visualizations to more easily-accessible locations, while spatially clustering others. Users can also use the tool to examine data in-context in related physical environments, at field sites, or alongside physical specimens or samples. By using a coordinated backend, multiple viewers can see the same set of visualizations at the same spatial locations, supporting shared awareness and promoting collaborative analysis.The IAT provides a unique analysis environment that has the potential to support a wide range of new analysis practices that more deeply leverage human spatial perception and provide deeper integration of analysis tools with the physical world.