Interactive Visualisation for Surface Proximity Monitoring

We consider tasks that require users to be aware of the proximity of two 3D surfaces and where one or both of these surfaces is changing over time. We consider situations where users need to quickly and accurately assess when and where the two surfaces approach each other and eventually intersect. Because occlusion in 3D visualisations remains an issue in the perception of such data, a complete, simultaneous perception of the proximity of two such surfaces could be helpful. We propose and implement a new, interactive, visualisation technique, “Proximity Map Projection” (PMP), to provide this assistance to users and describe a user study to investigate the effectiveness of PMP in a static scenario. This study found that PMP enabled faster and more accurate identification of regions of nearest proximity and greatest protrusion. As well as affirming the potential benefits of PMP, this study motivates several areas of further investigation of the technique.