Towards Designing Immersive Geovisualisations: Literature Review and Recommendations for Future Research

Geological fieldwork forms an integral part of science discovery, exploration, and learning in many geoscientific domains. Yet, there are barriers that can hinder its practice. To address this, prior research has investigated immersive geovisualisations, however, there is no consensus on the types of interaction tools and techniques that should be used. We have conducted a literature review of 31 papers and present the visualisation environments, interaction tools and techniques, and evaluation methods from this last decade. We found a lack of established taxonomy for visualisation environments; an absence of thorough reports on interaction tools and techniques; and a lack of use of relevant human-computer interaction (HCI) theories and user-centered approaches. This review contributes towards the development of a design framework as we propose a basic taxonomy; demonstrate the need for holistic records of user interactions; and highlight the need for HCI evaluation methods. Addressing these gaps will facilitate future innovation in the emerging field of immersive geovisualisations.