Visibility Widgets: Managing Occlusion of Quantitative Data in 3D Terrain Visualization

In 3D visualization of terrain, occlusion has detrimental impact on discovering, accessing, and spatially relating embedded data. This can lead to significant loss of information. To address this issue, we present visibility widgets: compact auxiliary views that visualize occluded data, their locations, and related properties, and thus, support users in revealing hidden information. Our widgets comprise different occlusion management strategies for detecting and analyzing invisible data inside as well as outside of the field of view. In addition, each widget is designed complementary and transient to facilitate interactive exploration and navigation while not monopolizing the user's attention. We demonstrate the application of our visibility widgets in a flexible visualization tool, focusing on visual exploration of hazardous weather phenomena in 3D terrain.