The Reality of the Situation: A Survey of Situated Analytics

IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph. 2023 Jun 13:PP. doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2023.3285546. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

The advent of low-cost, accessible, and high-performance augmented reality (AR) has shed light on a situated form of analytics where in-situ visualizations embedded in the real world can facilitate sensemaking based on the user's physical location. In this work, we identify prior literature in this emerging field with a focus on the technologies enabling such situated analytics. After collecting 47 relevant situated analytics systems, we classify them using a taxonomy of three dimensions: situating triggers, view situatedness, and data depiction. We then identify four archetypical patterns in our classification using an ensemble cluster analysis. Finally, we discuss several insights and design guidelines that we learned from our analysis.