[boost] [GSoC 07] Visualizing STL

From: Jake Voytko (jakevoytko_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-15 23:36:23

I'm working on the Summer of Code project "Visualization of STL
Containers", the goal of which is to create 2D graphs of data stored
in STL containers. (For more details, see the Trac link at the bottom
of the email)

The basic organization of the code is a "svg" class for working
directly in the SVG format, and a "svg_graph" class that inherits from
"svg" that the user uses as an interface.

My current predicament is the design of the "svg" class itself. My
personal view of the "svg" class was simply that it separates the
handling of the svg document from the handling of the graphing logic.
This was the way I designed the rapid prototype, and ostensibly, it
worked. In my head, the "svg" class could technically be implemented
without any external interface for users, and exist as a worker class.

However, this doesn't seem at all ideal from a long-term planning
perspective. I want to know if people would want me to spend some of
the time of this project making the "svg" class act as a stand-alone
(yet not fully implemented, obviously) SVG solution. Should it have a
proper user interface? Should it be extensible to a full-blown SVG
solution in the future? More specifically, are people looking for both
a SVG manipulating class *AND* a way to graph STL data?

There were suggestions of even treating the "svg" class as
manipulating a document as per the DOM standard, which is indeed
possible, but would require a complete overhaul of my current design,
which I set up my current design in order to make optimizations on
space and speed in the future. I see the obvious long term benefits of
this method, but I question the benefit to the current project. I only
have a finite amount of time in which to complete this, and it seems
like it would take away from the stated goal. However, I'd be more
than glad to implement a DOM if there were clamorous demand for this
feature!

Thank you for your time
Jake Voytko

Link to wiki on the project:
http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/soc/2007/VisualizationOfContainers