3DStoryline: Immersive Visual Storytelling

TL;DR

This paper introduces 3DStoryline, an immersive VR system for visualizing complex narratives, which improves user understanding compared to traditional 2D methods.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel VR-based system for immersive storyline visualization and provides design principles and evaluation demonstrating its effectiveness.

Findings

Enhanced comprehension of complex stories in VR

Effective design principles for immersive storytelling

Significant user performance improvements

Abstract

Storyline visualization has emerged as an innovative method for illustrating the development and changes in stories across various domains. Traditional approaches typically represent stories with one line per character, progressing from left to right. While effective for simpler narratives, this method faces significant challenges when dealing with complex stories involving multiple characters, as well as temporal and spatial dynamics. In this study, we investigate the potential of immersive environments for enhancing storyline visualizations. We begin by summarizing the key design considerations for effective storyline visualization in virtual reality (VR). Guided by these principles, we develop 3DStoryline, a system that allows users to view and interact with 3D immersive storyline visualizations. To evaluate the effectiveness of 3DStoryline, we conduct a task-based user study, revealing that the system significantly enhances users' comprehension of complex narratives.