Reality bites-progressive querying and result visualization in logical and VR spaces

A software tool called VQRH (Visual Querying and Result Hypercube) is presented. It enables the database users to visualize both database queries and retrieval results in many different representations. Due to the lack of knowledge about the database, a user may not be able to formulate a query whose result fully satisfies his or her needs in a single attempt. Using the VQRH progressive querying tool, the user interacts with the database by means of a sequence of partial queries, each displayed together with the corresponding result as one slice of the VQR Hypercube. This tool allows the user to change both query and result representations. It also presents the query history in a 3D perspective, so that a particular partial query on a slice may be brought to the front of the Hypercube for further refinement. Preliminary experimental results on using the VQRH tool for scientific databases are described. The combination of logical paradigms and virtual reality paradigms in progressive querying is discussed