Graph Interaction through Dynamics-Based Skeletal Animation

Skeletal animation is a concept that has been used in the areas of motion pictures and computer games to create realistic motion for the animation of articulated characters. Recent work has applied skeletal animation techniques from inverse kinematics to the field of graph interaction. The previous work introduced an interesting idea suggesting a skeletal graph interaction system would be intuitive and natural. However, due to problems with the skeletal animation techniques used, the benefits of the system were limited. This thesis investigates the use of a new dynamics-based technique previously used in the area of skeletal animation for graph interaction. The motivation for this work was to improve upon the previous work by providing a skeletal graph interaction system that reduces the difficulty and time taken in navigating the graph and increases the amount of information that can be interpreted and understood. We have adapted this technique and implemented it in a graph interaction environment allowing the user to drag nodes of the skeleton in order to manipulate the layout of the graph. The graph reacts to the user movement while maintaining the physical constraints placed upon it by the skeletal metaphor. We have also conducted a user study, the results of which confirm the usefulness of both this new technique and the skeletal metaphor in aiding the user’s understanding of a graph.