Scale-Aware Navigation of Astronomical Survey Imagery Data on High Resolution Immersive Displays

TL;DR

This paper introduces a design framework for navigating large-scale astronomical survey images in immersive environments, enabling seamless exploration of global and local details without fragmentation.

Contribution

It presents a novel design-oriented framework specifically tailored for scale-aware navigation of extreme-scale astronomical imagery in immersive display settings.

Findings

Demonstrated effective navigation techniques on Vera Rubin Observatory data.

Provided design insights for immersive interaction paradigms in scientific analysis.

Showcased applications on tiled and curved immersive display systems.

Abstract

Upcoming astronomical surveys produce imagery that spans many orders of magnitude in spatial scale, requiring scientists to reason fluidly between global structure and local detail. Data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory exemplifies this challenge, as traditional desktop-based workflows often rely on discrete views or static cutouts that fragment context during exploration. This paper presents a design-oriented framework for scale-aware navigation of astronomical survey imagery in high-resolution immersive display environments. We illustrate these principles through representative usage scenarios using Vera Rubin Observatory and Milky Way survey imagery deployed in room-scale immersive environments, including tiled high-resolution displays and curved immersive systems. Our goal is to contribute design insights that inform the development of immersive interaction paradigms for exploratory analysis of extreme-scale scientific imagery.