The VRNetzer platform enables interactive network analysis in Virtual Reality

Networks offer a powerful way to represent interacting components in complex systems, making them ideal for visually and analytically exploring big data. However, the size and complexity of many networks make static visualizations impractical. This paper introduces VRNetzer, a Virtual Reality (VR) platform designed to overcome these limitations by enabling thorough visual and interactive exploration of large networks. The platform is highly customizable and extensible, allowing for the import of custom code for data analysis, integration of external databases, and the design of user interface elements. As a proof of concept, the authors demonstrate its use in exploring genome-scale molecular networks to identify genes associated with rare diseases. VRNetzer provides a general-purpose VR-based data exploration platform for large and diverse datasets, facilitating the interaction between human intuition and advanced analysis methods.

Sebastian Pirch, Felix Müller, Eugenia Iofinova, Julia Pazmandi, Christiane V. R. Hütter, Martin Chiettini, Celine Sin, Kaan Boztug, Iana Podkosova, Hannes Kaufmann, Jörg Menche