Hugin

Abstract

Analysts are increasingly encountering datasets that are larger and more complex than ever before. Effectively exploring such datasets requires collaboration between multiple analysts, who more often than not are distributed in time or in space. Mixed-presence groupware provide a shared workspace medium that supports this combination of co-located and distributed collaboration. However, collaborative visualization systems for such distributed settings have their own cost and are still uncommon in the visualization community. We present Hugin, a novel layer-based graphical framework for this kind of mixed-presence synchronous collaborative visualization over digital tabletop displays. The design of the framework focuses on issues like awareness and access control, while using information visualization for the collaborative data exploration on network-connected tabletops. To validate the usefulness of the framework, we also present examples of how Hugin can be used to implement new visualizations supporitng these collaborative mechanisms.