Fig. 3: User interaction design.

a Interactions with the 3D network, such as moving the network or selecting individual nodes, are implemented as natural 3D gestures. The movement of the controllers with pressed trigger buttons (indicated in red) is directly translated into the corresponding movement of the network, allowing the user to drag, rotate, and scale the network. Individual nodes are selected by directly pointing at them. b, All other interactions are performed through 2D interfaces dedicated to specific tasks. The core functionalities are collected into a control panel that spawns as a virtual clipboard in one hand, and a virtual stylus in the other, which can also be used to type on a virtual keyboard. VR screenshots showing the (c) control panel and a particular (d) inspection panel. Inspection panels are used to display the results of a particular action or analysis, such as providing detailed annotations for a selected node. e–j Screenshots of the different core functionalities, organized as different tabs in the control panel. e Loading (saving) specific node sets from (to) the database. f Adjusting visual properties of the network. g Searching for nodes and node sets, either by name or any other attribute contained in the database. Searches can also be combined using logical operators. h List of currently selected nodes. i User interface for running network analytics, such as random walk with restart from a selected node set. j Highlighting node selections.