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Team:Wellesley Desyne/zTree
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Revision as of 20:48, 24 September 2013
Wellesley HCI iGEM 2013
zTree
TOOL OVERVIEW
zTree is an interactive, 3D visualization of the Registry of Standard Biological Parts that draws upon Parc’s Cone Trees visualization technique for representing hierarchical information. The top of the hierarchy represents a particular library, with nodes drawn like index cards to represent a generic part type, marked using Synthetic Biology Open Language, or a concrete biological part. In zTree, a user can browse or search for a part of interest, display the data sheet for the part, and export any selected parts to a plain text file, which can be imported into other programs for further use. The program also features an action log for user testing.
Implementation
zTree built in Unity, a game engine, using the zSpace SDK programmed in C#. The meshes were rendered in Blender and the data is pulled via the Registry API. zTree was implemented for the zSpace system, a 3D holographic display that provides six degrees of freedom when interacting with objects on screen. The display takes advantage of binocular vision and motion parallax to render a realistic image.
Purpose
With a large data set, a 2D structure would not fit on the screen, forcing the user to scroll or resize; zTree maximizes screen real estate, thereby allowing the user to visualize the whole structure at once.
- Our goals for zTree this summer were twofold:
- Provide users with an intuitive, interactive way to navigate the Registry of Standard Biological Parts
- Make a modular enough solution so that the application can eventually be used for a wide array of data sets
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RESULTS
We conducted a preliminary usability study of zTree with 9 Wellesley College students. The study employed a within subjects design, aiming to compare how students accomplished a series of simple tasks on zTree versus the Registry of Standard Biological Parts website. The students were asked to browse for a specific part, estimate the number of parts in a category, and compare two different part types.
- The task list was devised to:
- Study the effect of zTree's carousel structure on the user’s ability to understand hierarchical relationships and estimate the size of the data space.
- Improve functionality and evaluate overall experience through qualitative user feedback and survey responses.
After the study, participants were asked to choose the application that was easier to use, zTree or the Registry website, for individual subtasks. People generally found zTree more helpful than the registry in terms of visualizing the entire structure and understanding hierarchy (see Figure at right). User quotes provided further support for these findings. One user remarked, “It's great how easy it is to compare and view relationships of the different parts.” 4 of the 5 users also “Strongly Agreed” that the zTree application was visually appealing.
DEMO
FUTURE WORK
Most features desired for zTree were completely over the course of the summer. As the registry changed, the data sheet code needs to be updated. In the future we need to make the data sheets compliant with the registry API so that the program works with any future changes. Another iGEM team seems to be working on search function which we would like to integrate into the program. Some research has gone into which type of backgrounds for the zSpace eliminate ghosting so the team would also like to try to use one of those backgrounds to improve the visualization of their program. Using the pen to navigate and spin the carousels would be a good feature for the future as well.
