Metaverse: Perspectives from graphics, interactions and visualization

TLDR

The metaverse blends physical and digital worlds, but its visual construction and exploration remain in early stages with no established framework, despite emerging applications and opportunities. The paper proposes a framework summarizing how graphics, interaction, and visualization techniques support visual construction and user‑centric exploration of the metaverse, aiming to serve as a stepping stone for future research. The framework comprises three visual element types, two graphical construction methods in a pipeline, and taxonomies of interaction technologies and visualization techniques to aid user awareness.

Abstract

The metaverse is a visual world that blends the physical world and digital world. At present, the development of the metaverse is still in the early stage, and there lacks a framework for the visual construction and exploration of the metaverse. In this paper, we propose a framework that summarizes how graphics, interaction, and visualization techniques support the visual construction of the metaverse and user-centric exploration. We introduce three kinds of visual elements that compose the metaverse and the two graphical construction methods in a pipeline. We propose a taxonomy of interaction technologies based on interaction tasks, user actions, feedback and various sensory channels, and a taxonomy of visualization techniques that assist user awareness. Current potential applications and future opportunities are discussed in the context of visual construction and exploration of the metaverse. We hope this paper can provide a stepping stone for further research in the area of graphics, interaction and visualization in the metaverse.