Re: Updating list sociogram

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Aug 16 2002 - 05:47:04 MDT


On Fri, Aug 16, 2002 at 02:17:49AM -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> Anders -- If you can output a variant with the shading for
> the red/blue 3D glasses, I've got a pair I can view it with
> (I could never do the eye uncrossing trick very well)...

That is a cool idea! Unfortunately the current algorithm is 2D, since I
wanted the map to be easily visible (actually, it is 2D+1, I have a
slight displacement between the planes the subjects and posters lie in).
But I'll see what I can do; making a red/blue map seems quite easy with
this software, and it is ready for full 3D. It could generate a number of
views each time it is run.

>It might reduce the overlapping of the text if you did the
>following:
> Is the vector in the Northwest-to-Southwest quadrant
> (i.e. if N is 0 deg, for vector angles from >180 to < 360 deg)
> attempt to position the text with the last character
> on the vector termination point (rather than the first)
> perhaps subject to the constraint that this shouldn't expand
> the size of the map (if you are using really long subject
> lines with text left-justified and right-justified this
> could potentially make the map much larger.

A good idea! Right now I try to add a force between nodes that makes them
drift apart if they are at the same height. That doesn't work very well.

> You've got no shortage of colors, how about assigning each poster
> a unique color? (While keeping the subjects a single shape/color.)

It would look to cluttered (I have tried). I think there is room for
modulation of saturation or value in the posters and subjects, or
perhaps slight shifts in color (but keeping the same rough hue). This
means one scalar each. I will experiment a bit with an estimate of
whether the postings are increasing or decreasing relative to yesterday;
that might be a good scalar.

A few other examples in the category delightful graphs:

http://www.pmbrowser.info/ - a graph browser of Pubmed
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html - a graph browser of
Google

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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