Prefuse Learning (1) Understanding prefuse

Prefuse is an extensible software framework for helping software developers create interactive information visualization applications using the Java programming language. it can be used to build standalone applications, visual components embedded in larger applications, and web applets. prefuse intends to greatly simplify the processes of representing and efficiently handing data, mapping data to V Isual representations (e.g ., through spatial position, size, shape, color, etc), and crafting direct manipulation interaction with the visualized data. some of the features of prefuse include: prefuse is an extensible software framework that helps developers in Java develop interactive information visualization programs. It can be used to build independent applications, visualization components in large applications and web applets. Prefuse aims to simplify the development of the data processing process, and establish the relationship between data and the displayed image (especially the size, position, shape, and color of the image ), 3. Create interactive visual data display. prefuse has the following features: · table, graph, and tree data structures supporting arbitrary data attributes, data indexing, and selection queries, all with an efficient memory footprint. · supports data structures composed of tables, graphs, and trees, Data Indexing of fields, and query of selected columns, and efficiently utilizes memory. · Components for layout, color, size, and shape encodings, distortion techniques, animation, and more. · saved components help with layout, color, size and shape settings, deformation, animation, and more. · A library of interaction controls for common interactive, direct-manipulation operations. · A group of library functions including user interaction and Operations · animation support through a general activity scheduling mechanic. · animation · view transformations supporting panning and zooming, including both geometric and semantic zooming through a set of activity timing mechanisms. · visualized deformation effects, including moving the object location and resizing through space and semantics · dynamic queries for interactive filtering of data. · dynamic query and filtering data display · inte Grated text search using a number of available search engines. · integrated use of Lucene text query engines · A physical force simulation engine for Dynamic Layout and animation. · The use of physical force in position and animation · Flexibility for multiple views, including "Overview + detail" and "small multiples" displays. · flexible display modes, including Overview + details and Multiple display graphs · a built in, SQL-like Expression Language for writing queries to prefuse data structures and creati Ng derived data fields. · built-in SQL-like language statements can operate on rows and columns of Data · Support for issuing queries to SQL databases and mapping query results into prefuse data structures. · supports the ing between the database query result set and prefuse internal data (and perhaps most importantly). Perhaps the following are more important: simple, developer-friendly APIs for creating custom processing, interaction, and rendering components. · You can use simplified and developer-friendly APIs to create custom processes, user interaction, and image-painting components. The rest of this manual assumes at least a basic familiarity with the Java programming language, including setting up and building Java projects. A knowledge of swing or another similar user interface toolkit is also of great help for understanding some of the concepts behind prefuse and for integrating prefuse visualizations into larger applications. experience with database systems is also helpfu L (especially if using the built-in prefuse Expression Language for data manipulation), but is not required. You must have some basic Java development knowledge. The Swing and database master experience is very important. This article is reposted from http://yuping.javaeye.com/blog/56259.official website http://prefuse.org