04-06-2008, 07:42 PM
Hi guys
I am not an expert on visualization techniques, but by looking at the many examples (btw, tx a lot goosebumps4all!) I still managed to get something done with flare.
Basically I'm visualizing a network of 'claims', where the nodes are the texts of the claims and the arrows are the logical relations among the claims. I am using the basic stuff in flare, plus I added some components I've found here and there online, in particular the EdgeLabelLayout, ArrowEdgeRenderer and other stuff. Needless to say, thanks to all of you for having shared that!
I've run into various issues while using the force directed layout... i posted all the examples and the code at http://cohere.open.ac.uk/flare_test/readme.html
1) Everything kinda works with a small graph, but when I have a lot of data to visualize things start overlapping all the time... making the resulting visualization impossible to read. I guess I need some sort of reduce-crossing-things algorithm.. but I believe I dont have enough expertise to delve into this topic..do you have any suggestion about that? I implemented a quite simple 'expansion' routine to overcome this problem [reduceCrossings() function], but it doesnt perform well when there are a lot of nodes.
2) Also, in the code you'll find a couple of functions [createMyLayouts(), switchLayout()] which are partially inactive in the demo. Basically I was trying to set up controls for letting a user change the layout (e.g. from force directed to indented or radial) of the whole graph. But unfortunately this doesnt work ... the biggest problem, i guess, is that (as mentioned in another previous post) most of the flare layouts work only with trees... while what i'm dealing with here is a graph (that is, a set of trees with no common ancestor). Does anybody know whether is there any workaround for this?
3) finally - i've been trying to make the whole thing work within a flex application (so to use the other UI components too). I tried to follow the instructions posted at [http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=2037783&forum_id=757572] ... but the resulting output is really messy (see the example). I couldnt get my head around it yet.... any idea why this is happening?
thaaaaaanks!!!
mik
I am not an expert on visualization techniques, but by looking at the many examples (btw, tx a lot goosebumps4all!) I still managed to get something done with flare.
Basically I'm visualizing a network of 'claims', where the nodes are the texts of the claims and the arrows are the logical relations among the claims. I am using the basic stuff in flare, plus I added some components I've found here and there online, in particular the EdgeLabelLayout, ArrowEdgeRenderer and other stuff. Needless to say, thanks to all of you for having shared that!
I've run into various issues while using the force directed layout... i posted all the examples and the code at http://cohere.open.ac.uk/flare_test/readme.html
1) Everything kinda works with a small graph, but when I have a lot of data to visualize things start overlapping all the time... making the resulting visualization impossible to read. I guess I need some sort of reduce-crossing-things algorithm.. but I believe I dont have enough expertise to delve into this topic..do you have any suggestion about that? I implemented a quite simple 'expansion' routine to overcome this problem [reduceCrossings() function], but it doesnt perform well when there are a lot of nodes.
2) Also, in the code you'll find a couple of functions [createMyLayouts(), switchLayout()] which are partially inactive in the demo. Basically I was trying to set up controls for letting a user change the layout (e.g. from force directed to indented or radial) of the whole graph. But unfortunately this doesnt work ... the biggest problem, i guess, is that (as mentioned in another previous post) most of the flare layouts work only with trees... while what i'm dealing with here is a graph (that is, a set of trees with no common ancestor). Does anybody know whether is there any workaround for this?
3) finally - i've been trying to make the whole thing work within a flex application (so to use the other UI components too). I tried to follow the instructions posted at [http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=2037783&forum_id=757572] ... but the resulting output is really messy (see the example). I couldnt get my head around it yet.... any idea why this is happening?
thaaaaaanks!!!
mik