Sports and Tech: A Visualization Challenge

Sports visualization is tough because it deals with lots of space, time, and user-specific data. New technologies like augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (XR) are changing the game, bringing both cool opportunities and tricky challenges. We've been working with sports experts and have some lessons to share from our experience in SportsXR. In the past, we've focused on different types of users like athletes, analysts, and fans, each with their own needs — like real-time training feedback, automated video analysis, or personalized live data visualization. In this write-up, we'll talk about the best practices and pitfalls we've come across in SportsXR. We'll also discuss what we've learned from working with sports experts on designing and testing visualizations, and how emerging AR/XR technologies play a role. We believe that sports visualization research can benefit everyone in the visualization community by tackling unique challenges and opportunities for immersive analytics.