Breaking the Plane

Breaking the Plane is an augmented reality (AR) application, built in Unity for the Oculus Quest 3, that enables users to visualize multidimensional mathematical functions using handwritten input. This project was an exploration of the potential of a mixed-reality interface to aid in math pedagogy and problem-solving — particularly within the context of multivariate calculus — and involved the development of a prototype system and subsequent evaluation study. Our study compared our system to popular math visualization tools, including GeoGebra (web application) and GeoGebra AR (mobile app with AR mode) and found our system to outperform existing tools on metrics of self-reported engagement and problem-solving effectiveness and achieve ease of use comparable to existing desktop visualization tools and surpassing existing AR visualization tools.

This project was originally developed in Fall 2023 as a final project for COS 436 (Human-Computer Interaction), where it won peer-voted awards for “Best System Implementation” and “Best Overall Project.” Our paper was subsequently accepted and presented as a Late-Breaking Work at CHI ‘24.

Made in collaboration with Jenny Sun, Kris Selberg, and Brian Lou.