3D scatterplots are a well-established plotting technique that can be used to represent data with three or more dimensions. On paper and computer monitors they are essentially two-dimensional projections of the three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. This transition from the 3D space to two dimensions is not done consistently among scientific software, as there is currently limited quantifiable evidence on the effectiveness of each approach. Notably, the frequent lack of visual cues such as with regard to depth perception is equivalent to a reduction of dimensionality by one. Hence, their use in manuscripts is less common or straightforward. In this empirical study, an online survey is conducted within an academic institution to identify and quantify the effectiveness of feature or feature combinations on 3D scatterplots in terms of reading time and accuracy.

翻译：三维散点图是一种成熟的绘图技术，可用于表示三维或更高维度的数据。在纸张和计算机显示器上，它们本质上是三维笛卡尔坐标系的二维投影。由于目前对各种方法有效性的可量化证据有限，科学软件在从三维空间到二维空间的转换处理上并不一致。值得注意的是，深度感知等视觉线索的频繁缺失相当于降低了一个维度。因此，它们在学术手稿中的使用较不常见或直接。本实证研究通过在学术机构内开展在线调查，从阅读时间和准确度两个维度，识别并量化三维散点图中特征或特征组合的有效性。