Re: Spread Sheet or Python?

• To: Adele Cutler <adele@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Subject: Re: Spread Sheet or Python?
• From: Bill Hibbard <billh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 18:02:49 -0500 (CDT)

Dear Adele,

On Tue, 11 Jun 2002, Adele Cutler wrote:

> Hi Everyone,

To send to everyone you need to send to visad-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
rather than owner-visad-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.

>       I'd like to create an application to:
>
>       1. read data from several text files
>       2. do a scatter-diagram in one window (I'll settle for 2D, but 3D would
>               ultimately be nice)

One nice feature of VisAD is that 3-D is as easy as 2-D (or is
it that 2-D is as difficult as 3-D?).

>       3. allow the user to select data points using something like the
>               RubberBandBoxRenderer (or ultimately CurveManipulationRenderer) 
> and
>               pass these points to another plot (initially, a parallel 
> coordinate plot,
>               but later I'll need to modify this to do something more 
> creative)

You'll need a CellImpl triggered by changes from the
RubberBandBoxRendererJ3D of the CurveManipulationRendererJ3D,
which then computes which data points are selected and uses
then to construct a new Data object linked to other Displays.

>       4. allow the user to select which variables go on the axes of the plots
>       5. allow the user to color points according to some variable

These fit nicely with the Mapping widget in the SpreadSheet,
also used for some Displays in Python.

> After exploring the tutorial, the MiniSheet, and the SpreadSheet, it seemed
> like SpreadSheet
> might be the best place to start. I can do all except step 3 already, but 3
> is a big one.
> Bill wrote a parallel coordinate plot when I asked about that several months
> ago (THANKS!)
> but I'm not sure how to implement this inside SpreadSheet. Seems I'll have
> to tinker with
> the code to do step 3 anyway, so I'm working through the tutorial, but it
> seems like a big
> leap from that to the SpreadSheet, and SpreadSheet seems to do a lot of
> things I don't
> need (the remote/collaboration part, and most of the mappings).
>
> I've done some java before, but this will be my first VisAD project (I'm a
> statistician).
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions on whether I would be better off
>       -starting my own application from scratch (following the tutorial)

This is what I'd do, but . . .

>       -modifying SpreadSheet

. . . perhaps Curtis, the author of the SpreadSheet can
enlighten us with an easy way to use it for your task.

>       -using Python (am I likely to run into limitations here?)

. . . and perhaps Tom can enlighten us on whether this would be easy.

Cheers,
Bill

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Spread Sheet or Python?
    • From: Curtis Rueden
  • Re: Spread Sheet or Python?
    • From: Tom Whittaker