Re: General questions about visAD

Hi Nicholas-

I'll add in my 2 cents to Tom's remarks as well as answer your
other question.  As Tom said, Bill Hibbard might have more
to add to our comments:

Nicolas Ocquidant wrote (in two separate messages):

I thought that visAD java2D implementation was based on java3D. Is that
true?
Can I always use   java3D + TwoDDisplayRendererJ3D   instead of the
java2D package?


The java2d package underneath uses Java 2D, but many of the classes
are mimicking Java3D functionality.

You'll generally get better performance using DisplayImplJ3D +
TwoDDisplayRendererJ3D.  Line graphs are okay in the java2D
stuff, but gridded data, satellite imagery, maps, etc are
very slow to renderer in the java2d implementation.


I'm currently looking for a free 2D/3D component library (in java will be
better)
in order to build quickly graphics from scientific programs, for my
company.
Of course, I will contribute to the source.


That would be good.


I have found visAD which looks nice.


We are writing scientific applications on top of VisAD with
our Integrated Data Viewer (IDV)/MetApps work:

http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/software/metapps


I have some general questions to ask you:

  - Do you intend to use RMI/IIOP instead of pure RMI?


Not that I know of and  I echo everything else Tom said.


  - Lots of code portions are deprecated when I compile them with jdk1.4.
This
is not a major problem, but I was wondering if the code is still active
because
the dates from sourceforge site are: october 2000.


I just recompiled the VisAD distribution using JDK 1.3 and J2SDK 1.4.0.
There are more deprecations using 1.4.0, but as Tom said, we try
to be compatible with older versions of Java (base is 1.2) and Java 3D
(base is 1.1).  There were fewer under 1.3.  Given the number of
classes/methods in VisAD and ancillary packages, the number of
deprecated methods is rather small.  For the ancillary packages
(IJ, DODS, HTTPClient), we don't always have control over
their development.


  - Do you give up the idea to use JavaBeans for visAD as it was mentioned

in the article: "VisAD: connecting people to computations and people to
people"?


Unidata has tried using JavaBeans, but one of the biggest problem we
found is conflicts between the VisAD event model and the JavaBeans
event model.  In general, it is better to use the VisAD event
model than JavaBeans property events.  For one thing, the
Bean events don't work across JVM's like the VisAD events do
with RMI.


This sounds very promising to me...
  - Is there a way to see futur plans for visAD?


As Tom said, future plans mostly involve changes necessary
for building applications on top of the library.  The library
has been pretty well tested in many different disciplines although
some bugs occasionally still crop up.  As for enhancements,
since VisAD is freely available under LGPL, we would welcome
enhancements as long as they don't change the API.  There
is also the possibility of providing funding to SSEC for
enhancements.  Unidata has funded enhancements such as
streamlines, color filled contours, better contour labelling
(in the works) to suit our scientific clientelle and these
are now part of the core package. The Australian Bureau of
Meteorology has also funded some improvements (e.g. wind barbs,
curve drawing) which we have been able to take advantage of in
our work (thanks BoM!)


  - Where could I find some examples with (complex) gridding?


I'm not sure what you mean here either.


  optional question:

  - what other good products could I use......
I've found VTK which looks very complete.


While there are several other packages out there (VTX, DX),
one of the primary advantages of VisAD is the integrated
Data model.  Because all data objects in VisAD extend from
the Data Interface, you can perform complex mathematical
operations on seemingly disparate datasets.  For example,
a 2D satellite image and a grid of temperatures
are both examples of FlatField-s and could be combined
mathematically, complete with Units tracking, automatic
resampling to a common domain, error tracking, etc.
 In many other systems, these would be treated as two
distinct types of data - images and grids and you would
first have to convert one format to the other before
performing the calculations.  Couple this with the Jython
language and you have accesss to further manipulations
including matrix manipulation in a scripting environment.



Don
*************************************************************
Don Murray                               UCAR Unidata Program
dmurray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                        P.O. Box 3000
(303) 497-8628                              Boulder, CO 80307
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/donm
*************************************************************



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