Real Interfaces Visualizer
An easy-to-use system for assembling and managing complex, interaction-enabled, three-dimensional user interfaces.
Date Posted: October 20, 2005
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Update: March 8, 2006
Version 1.1: Addition of support for nested matrices along with the capability of cell spanning in all three directions.
What is Real Interfaces Visualizer?
Working in three-dimensional (3D) space enhances the user interface (UI) by breaking the limits of the two-dimensional world and leaving one with many more visualization possibilities as well as exciting new methods of computerized interaction. The expressive power of UI increases by adding this third dimension, but it can greatly increase the complexity of assembling such 3D enhancements and adding them to the user interface.
The primary purpose of Real Interfaces Visualizer (River) is to make the construction of a 3D user interface as easy as possible. The object model of River and its XML representation results in shielding the 3D-specific API and allows the developer to continue using the proven concepts used in current UI systems.
Those concepts include the frames used for multiple views; cascading styles; hyperlinks; simple text formatting; 3D table for arranging the data into the layers, rows, and columns of cells; decorators; and more.
River contains the core technology library and its configuration file, a simple client library (for demonstration purpose), and a set of examples.
How does it work? The core of River is built upon Java3D, which is a Java™ API specification for 3D scene-based graphics programming. Java3D is designed to use the native platform-dependent libraries and their support for hardware acceleration. The specification of this API has been implemented for most of the platforms, including Windows®, Linux®, AIX®, and Solaris.
River's object model shields the complex API of Java3D by its further encapsulation and provides extra services for automatic shape's position allocation, for easier shape's appearance and decoration management, for user input processing, and more.
The core library consists of a SceneParser that transforms the data passed in XML into the appropriate instances in the object model. The data in the object model are picked up by the SceneRenderer, which generates the appropriate 3D scene using the Java3D API. The SceneRenderer also adds other helpers and controllers into the scene as certain services are requested. All the undergoing processes are under control of the SceneManager, which is designed to be a common touch-point for a client of this technology.
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For platform(s):
AIX, Linux, Windows 2000, Windows, Java, Windows XP, Sun Solaris/SPARC
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For topics:
Graphics, Systems management, user interface, visualization, XML
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