ImWeb: cross-platform immersive web browsing for online 3D neuron database exploration

Web services have become one major way for people to obtain and explore information nowadays. However, web browsers currently only offer limited data analysis capabilities, especially for large-scale 3D datasets. This project presents a method of immersive web browsing (ImWeb) to enable effective exploration of multiple datasets over the web with augmented reality (AR) techniques. The ImWeb system allows inputs from both the web browser and AR and provides a set of immersive analytics methods for enhanced web browsing, exploration, comparison, and summary tasks. We have also integrated 3D neuron mining and abstraction approaches to support efficient analysis functions. The architecture of ImWeb system flexibly separates the tasks on web browser and AR and supports smooth networking among the system, so that ImWeb can be adopted by different platforms, such as desktops, large displays, and tablets. We use an online 3D neuron database to demonstrate that ImWeb enables new experiences of exploring 3D datasets over the web. We expect that our approach can be applied to various other online databases and become one useful addition to future web services.