vrmlgraph

3-D VRML graph drawing package in Java

• Storage of Nodes and Edges of a 3-D graph in a single GraphData object.
• Parsing descriptions of connected nodes from a graph program text file and populating a GraphData object with them. The nodes do not need to specify their x,y,z locations.
• Performing 3-D spring embedding calculations to produce (often) aesthetically pleasing graphs from any input.
• Center any 3-D graph about the origin.
• Output a text file that describes the currently stored 3-D graph.
• Output a VRML file that shows a 3-D view of the current graph.

You should be able to get a quick idea of what this is capable of if you run the DemoMain Java classes included in the zip file.

If you do not have one already, then I would strongly recommend that you install a VRML viewer to view the VRML files with. After all, there's little point in making 3-D graphs if you can't view them in 3-D ;-)

You can get a free VRML viewer from http://www.cai.com/cosmo/

To actually give you some idea of what this stuff does, I have made a few DemoMain classes. You should be able to run these with java DemoMain1 and so on if you have properly unzipped the zip file (i.e. there should be a directory leading off to uk/org/iscream/vrmlgraph. If that's not working, then don't worry too much, because the entire uk.org.iscream.vrmlgraph package is available in the vrmlgraph.jar file.

To run one of the demo programs with the vrmlgraph.jar file, you will need to tell Java to look for the package in that .jar file. You can do this by adding the file to your classpath, or just run java with the following command: java -cp vrmlgraph.jar;. DemoMain1

All of the demo programs currently create a text file to describe the new 3-D spring embedded graph as well as a 3-D VRML scene of it. Some of the demo programs read their input from a file describing the starting nodes.

Once you've got the hang of that, you should be able to take a look at the source of the DemoMain programs to work out what they are doing. You should then find it a piece of cake to write your own Java applications that make use of this package.

You may download the package and example files for you own use from the sourceforge page.

The zip file contains full source code, all the compiled classes, javadoc information and a jar file of the package.

Please feel free to contact me via email if you have any questions regarding the use of this package. If you would like to use this package in one of your own programs, then I would be delighted to hear from you. Above all, it would be nice to hear about any ideas for improvement or additional features, or simply what you think of it at the moment.