The increasing need to visualize and analyze big and complex data leads today's research towards collaborative methods and technologies to enable a group of humans to work in a shared virtual or augmented space. With the Collaborative and Immersive Visual Analytics (ColimVis) project, we use the combination of recent virtual and augmented reality technologies (e.g. the Oculus Rift DK2 head mounted display and the Leapmotion sensor) in order to enable groups of users to explore complex data in a collaborative virtual system. Direct benefits of such a system include sharing different points of views of the visualisation, sharing interesting discoveries such as particular visual patterns, and much more.

The Visualising Angkor Project explores the crafting of a comprehensive virtual model of the medieval capital of Cambodia. The evidence-based creation of 3D models and 3D visualisations draw upon data from a wide array of sources, from archaeological and art historical surveys through to historical accounts, photographic archives, textile studies and botanical references gleaned from epigraphy. Taken together, these 3D models make up a library that can be patterned to visualise hypothetical reconstructions of the past that augment and illuminate information from historical texts and archaeological surveys. Such visualisations establish an iterative dialogue between 3D animators, archaeologists, and historians to test how assumptions about Angkor can be made more precise.