Data Sources

• A Data Source is a collection of points, plus a title
• A Collection of Data Points has
  • A dimension
  • A name for each dimension
  • Each point has values for each dimension

Need to Support

• 1D plots
• X-Y plots
• 2D plots
• 3D plots
• 4D plots
• binned or unbinned

How to deal with?

• Rebinning (a special case of the view interacting with the data)
• Non-double data values (string, date, integer, etc)
• How does the plot know how to display each data type
• Need to deal with data sources that are changing (updating)
• Needs to be able to deal with very large collections.
• Need to maintain backwards compatibility with existing data sources
  • Could just have adapters from current data sources to new data sources

Data Managers

• Role of DataManager is to:
  • Coordinate display of multiple DataSources
  • Choose default display style
  • Allow user to select alternative display styles
  • Set default ranges on axis
  • Where appropriate allow user interaction with axes
  • Creates Popup Menu
    • Allow for adding and removing functions
    • Allow for adding and removing slices

Problems

• Currently DataManager is unwieldy, difficult to understand, difficult to verify that it is correct.
• Would be nice to support plugable display styles, so new display styles can be added easily.
  • For example someone should be able to add a 2D lego plot without having to understand the details of the DataManager implementation.

Need to support

• Need to support different display styles
  • Direct painting
  • Painting via image (ScatterPlot)
  • Java 3D
  • Other (OpenGL)