Studying the Benefits and Challenges of Immersive Dataflow Programming

Creating Virtual Reality (VR) applications normally requires advanced knowledge of imperative programming, 3D modeling, reactive programming, and geometry. Immersive authoring tools propose to reduce the learning curve of VR programming by allowing users to create VR content while immersed in VR. Immersive authoring can take advantage of many of the features that make VR applications intuitive and natural to use—users can manipulate programming primitives through direct manipulation, immediately see the output of their code, and use their innate spatial reasoning capabilities when viewing a program. In this paper, we investigate the benefits and challenges of immersive dataflow authoring. We implemented an immersive authoring tool that enables dataflow programming in VR and conducted a series of retrospective interviews. We also describe design implications for future immersive authoring tools.