Advanced Visualization and Interaction Techniques for Large High-Resolution Displays

Large high-resolution displays combine the images of multiple smaller display devices to form one large display area. A total resolution that can easily comprise several hundred megapixels makes them suited for the visualization of data sets that could not be perceived entirely on desktop PCs or laptops due to their size. At the same time, user collaboration benefits from an extended screen area that facilitates interaction with screen contents as well as interaction among users. This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities of large high-resolution displays and examines ways to set up display clusters both in terms of hardware and underlying software technology. Furthermore, it investigates how to effectively harness the computational power and resources of rendering clusters to visualize giga-scale data sets. Last but not least, traditional interaction metaphors and their scalability to large displays as well as the effect of new techniques on the user experience are discussed.