This project is about fast interactive visualization of large data structures organized in a tree.
Project goals:
- Visualize the data structure in a way which allows to get an overview of the data structure within a short time.
- Provide guidance which allows to quickly drill down into points of interest in the data structure.
- Render the data structure fast enough so that real-time navigation is possible.
The project currently consists of a file browser demo, which visualizes the file system with the following tree diagrams:
- Hyperbolic Tree
- Circular Treemap
- Rectangular Treemap
- Sunburst Tree
- Icicle Tree
- Sunray Tree
- Iceray Tree
The following pictures show all the same data set:
Hyperbolic Tree:
Circular Treemap:
Rectangular Treemap:
Sunburst Tree:
Icicle Tree:
Sunray Tree:
Iceray Tree:
The source code for the hyperbolic tree is based on the Hypertree project at Sourceforge.net, with the following changes:
- The children of a tree node are sorted alphabetically.
- Tree edges and tree nodes are color coded by the age of the file that they represent. New files are red, very old files are blue.
- Tree edges and tree nodes are sized differently according to the size of the files and directories that the represent.
- The tree is pruned to allow faster rendering. Pruning occurs when there is not enough visual space left for a subtree.
- During interaction and animation, antialiasing is disabled to reduce latency.
- The rendering of edges and tree nodes is performed in two separate threads, to take advantage of computers with multiple processing units.
