Optimal Information Placement in an Interactive 3D Environment

The correct placement of important artifacts and information in interactive three-dimensional (3D) environments is important to ensure that those key artifacts and information are seen and absorbed by the immersed user. This can include training information, advertisements, clues, interaction points, and other information that needs to be conveyed to or manipulated by the user. We propose a novel algorithm for calculating the optimal positioning of such artifacts and information based on a corpus of prior play testers, which are used to determine distance-weighted and radially focused observation densities on surfaces of interactive 3D environments. We have developed a tool called HIIVVE (Highly Interactive Information Value Visualization and Evaluation) which allows for interactive evaluation as well as offline processing of the information value surfaces. A user study involving information placement using the calculated information value surfaces and observation densities shows that higher valued locations do yield improved user observation by as much as 58.3%.