On studying a 3D user interface for OLAP

摘要

In this paper, a new visual and interactive user interface for OLAP is presented, and its strengths and weaknesses examined. A survey on 3D interfaces for OLAP is detailed, which shows that only one interface that uses Virtual Reality has been proposed. Then we present our approach: it consists of a 3D representation of OLAP cubes where many OLAP operators have been integrated and where several measures can be visualized. A 3D stereoscopic screen can be used in conjunction with a 3D mouse. Finally a user study is reported that compares standard dynamic cross-tables with our interface on different tasks. We conclude that 3D with stereoscopy is not as promising as expected even with recent 3D devices.