Designing Shared VR Tools for Spatial Scientific Sensemaking About Wildfire Evacuation

We posit that scientists who work with spatial data could benefit from shared VR tools that allow them to do immersive sensemaking together to generate new insights and approaches to their work. We engaged with researchers studying wildfire evacuation who currently use 2D spatial simulations to develop prototypes of shared VR interface features to allow them to explore and discuss their data. We present results of preliminary interviews, our design process and mocked-up features (callouts, shared time scrubbing, 3D marquee selection, photospheres, and metaboard), and follow-up feedback from the scientists about these features. Scientists found these features useful, in particular callouts due to ability to indicate objects of interest and examine relevant metadata and offered suggestions for extending and developing the features in future prototyping work.