In contemporary biology and medicine, 3D microscopy is one of the most widely-used techniques for imaging and manipulation of various kinds of samples. Navigating such a micrometer-sized, 3-dimensional sample under the microscope -- e.g. to find relevant imaging regions -- can pose a tedious challenge for the experimenter. In this paper, we examine whether 2D desktop, 3D desktop, or Virtual Reality (VR) interfaces provide the best user experience and performance for the exploration of 3D samples. We invited 12 skilled microscope operators to perform two different exploration tasks in 2D, 3D and VR and compared all conditions in terms speed, usability, and completion. Our results show a clear benefit when using VR -- in terms of task efficiency, usability, and user acceptance. Intriguingly, while VR outperformed desktop 2D and 3D in all scenarios, 3D desktop did not outperform 2D desktop.

翻译：在当代生物学和医学中，3D显微镜技术是对各类样本进行成像与操作最广泛使用的技术之一。在显微镜下导航微米级三维样本（例如寻找相关成像区域）对实验人员而言是一项繁琐的挑战。本文旨在探讨2D桌面界面、3D桌面界面与虚拟现实（VR）界面中，哪一种能为探索3D样本提供最佳用户体验和操作性能。我们邀请了12名熟练的显微镜操作员在2D、3D和VR条件下执行两项不同的探索任务，并从速度、易用性和完成度方面对所有条件进行比较。研究结果显示，VR在使用效率、易用性和用户接受度方面具有显著优势。有趣的是，尽管VR在所有场景中的表现均优于2D和3D桌面界面，但3D桌面界面并未表现出比2D桌面界面更优的性能。