Virtual Reality Technologies (Visual, Haptics, and Audio) in Large Datasets Analysis

With the latest developments in technology, several researchers have integrated other sensorymotor channels in the analysis of scientific datasets. In addition to vision, auditory feedbacks and haptic interactions have been exploited. In this chapter we study how these modalities can contribute to effective analysis processes. Based on psychophysical characteristics of humans the author argues that haptics should be used in order to improve interactions of the user with the dataset to analyze. The author describes a classification that highlights four tasks for which haptics seems to present advantages over vision and audio. Proposed taxonomy is divided into four categories: Select, Locate, Connect and Arrange. Moreover, this work provides a complete view on the contribution of haptics in analysis of scientific datasets.