Glance: generalized geometric primitives and transformations for information visualization in AR/VR environments

This paper outlines Glance, a unifying framework for exploring multidimensional, multivariate data in the context of AR/VR environments, along with specific implementation techniques that utilize programmable GPUs. The presented techniques extend the graphics pipeline through programmable shaders in order to support more general geometries and operations. Our point of departure from existing structural theories of graphics is a general spatial substrate, where data is encoded using higher-dimensional geometric primitives. From there, we define a series of processing stages, utilizing shaders to enable flexible and dynamic coordinate transformations. Furthermore, we describe how advanced visualization techniques, such as faceting and multiple views, can be integrated elegantly into our model. Bridging between Computer Graphics and Information Visualization theories, the elements of our framework are composable and expressive, allowing a diverse set of visualizations to be specified in a universal manner (see figure 1).