University of Pennsylvania
ScholarlyCommons Center for Human Modeling and Simulation
Department of Computer & Information Science
8-1-1998
SIGGRAPHVRML 3D Ph.D. Conetree Norman I. Badler University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected]
Roger W. Webster Millersville University
Postprint version. Copyright ACM, 1998. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, Volume 28, Issue 3, August 1998, pages 43-44. Publisher URL: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/281278.281303 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/hms/18 For more information, please contact
[email protected].
SIGGRAPH
98
HISTORY
PROJECT
S I G G R A P H V R M L 3D Ph.D. Conetree Dr. Norman LBadler U n i v e r s i t y o f Pennsylvania
Dr. Roger W.Webster Millersville U n i v e r s i t y
Abstract This paper describes the work-in-progress of aVRML 3D conetree to visualize Ph.D. gnduaces and their Ph.D. thesis advisors in the field of c o m p u t e r graphics. As part of the SIGGRAPH history project chaired by Carl Machover, this VRML 3D conetree debuts publicly at the 25th conference celebration at SIGGRAPH 9B, July 199B, in Orlando, FL.This conetree allows a VRML-enabled browser to visualize Ph.D. contributors to the field of computer graphics and to trace their influences and academic progeny. The database developed may seed further studies of the field's contributors. The initial phase of this project (using Ph.D. advisors~graduates) provides a hierarchical (if arbitrary) view of part of $1GGRAPH's academic structure.
list of its children.The output of the program is a VRML 'cone.wrl' file. Up to four lines of t e x t can be associated w i t h each node
(vertex). This database is just the beginning documentation to the human side of the meteoric rise of computer graphics. Few disciplines have the benefit of creating such biographical materials while almost all the players are still alive. We hope that the start we have made will encourage further expansion to other
The DataBase The database is a flat ASCII file, and each line has the following format:
-vertex_name_tex'csecondlineoftext:3rdline:
Introduction Conetrees were first developed by George Robertson, Jock Mackinlay and Stuart Card while at X e r o x PARC. Their work: "Cone Trees: Animated 3D Visualizations of Hierarchical Information" was presented at SlGCHI '91, pgs. 189-194.A conetree is a 3D representation of a tree structure. Conetrees have been shown to be very effective information visualization tools for large data sets that are broad, shallow and hierarchical. In a conetree representation, the root of a tree (represented by a cube, a sphere or some other appropriate object) is located at the tip of a transparent cone. The children of the root node are arranged around the base of the cone. Each child can be the root node of a subtree, which is represented in a recursive fashion by a cone whose tip is located at the object representing the child. This conetree implementation visualizes simple hierarchical relationships occurring in the data with a standard G = ~ E ) graph with vertices and edges implementation.Thus, each line in a fiat, ascii, datafile has a vertex and a
conetree. This will load the file: cone.wrl.gz into your VRML browser The file is gzip compressed and it's still greater than 3MB. In uncompressed form, it is over 26MB.You can also view the VRML 3D conetree data in raw html format.TheVRML 3D conetree can also be viewed in 2D using a Java applet. The applet shows the 2D graph. If you are not in the SIGGRAPH conetree database you can add your data with an easy to fill out form at the Web site. If you have a long list of Ph.D. students that you have supervised, you can fax the information to + 1-717-871-2320. We would rather the database be inclusive rather than exclusive, so we are happy to include any field that could be of potential interest to the SIGGRAPH community at large. Example views from the conetree are shown below.
Figure I : Conetreewith mare than 700 entries.See page 97 for imafe in full color. academic degrees or titled positions (such as graphics software engineer, degree notwithstanding!). We will be seeking avenues for such an expansion of the database so that we may more fully capture the human aspect of the computer graphics phenomenon. There are now more than 700 people in the SIGGRAPH conetree database.
4thline-numberofchildren-children Where: 'children' is a list of the subscripts of the vertices. Unfortunately, no spaces are allowed in the text. Here is a simple data set (Graphics has f o u r children: Coons, Van_Dam, Foley, Bresenham): Coons has one child: Sutherland. - G raphics::::--4-- 1,2,3,4 -Coons::::- I - 5 -Van_Dam::::-O-Foley::::-O-Bresenham::::-0-Sutherland::::-OOur example datafile of Ph.D. advisors and their Ph.D. graduates looks like this: -LastName:FirstName:Date:lnstitution-Nu m berOfChilclren-ChildrenList
The W e b Site A t the Web site h t t p : / / i m l . m i l l e r s v . e d u / S I G G R A P H _ t r e e / i n d e x . h t m l , you can view the entire SlGGRAPH VRML 3D Ph.D. Computer Graphics August 1998 41
i/
Figure2:Viewfrom the top of the conetree.See page 97 for image in full color. Acknowledgments
This project was funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation under grant number DUE-9651237, and by the Faculty Grants Committee of Millersville University and by SIGGRAPH History Projects A2961-0 chaired by Carl Machover. Special thanks go to the Sense8 Corporation for technical support. The VRML conetree generator program was written in Sense8's WorldToolKit. The Java 2D tree graph program was written in Java jdk 1.0, both by Dr. Roger Webster while on sabbatical during the Fall 1998 semester at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Human Modeling and Simulation. References
I. Ames,Andrea L., David R. Nadeau,John L Moreland. VRML 2.0 Source Book, John Wiley & Sons Publishing Company, NY, 1997. (ISBN: 0-471 - 16507-7). 2. Carey, Rikk and Gavin Bell. The Annotated VRML 2.0 Reference Manual, AddisonWesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA, 1997. (ISBN: 0-201-41974-2).
Figure4: Preliminarysketchof the displayarea at SIGGRAPH98. CourtesyofJeff Callender. See page 97 for image in full color.
3. Flanagan, David. Java in a Nutshell, First Edition (jdk 1.0), O'Reilly Press, Sebastopol, CA, 1996. 4. Flanagan,David. Java in a Nutshell, Second Edition (jdk I . I ) O'Reilly Press, Sebastopol, CA, 1997. 5. Geary, David M. Graphic Java I . I Mastering the AWT, Second Edition, Sun Microsystems Press, Mountain View, CA, 1997. 6. Hartman, Jed and Josie Wernecke. The VRML 2.0 Handbook- Building Moving Worlds on the Web, Silicon Graphics Incorporated,
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA, 1996. (ISBN:0-201-47944-3). 7. Robertson, George, Jack Mackinlay and Stuart Card. "Cone Trees: Animated 3D Visualizations of Hierarchical Information" SIGCHI '91 Proceedings,pgs. 189-194.
m m
m
Figure3: Sampleof SIGGRAPHconetreedata in 2D withJavaapplet.
44
August1998Computer Graphics
8. Roehl, Bernie , Justin Couch, Cindy ReedBallreich, Tim Rohaly, Geoff Brown. Late Night VRML 2.0 with Java, 1997. (ISBN: 156276-504-3). This project was sponsored, in part, by the National Science Foundation under grant number DUE-9651237, and by the Faculty Grants Committee of Millersville University and by SIGGRAPH History Projects A296 I-0. Dr. Norman I. Badler
Center for HumanModelingand Simulation Universityof Pennsylvania Philadelphia,PA 19104-6389 Email:badler~central.cis.upenn.edu Dr. Roger W. Webster
Departmentof Computer Science MillersvilleUniversity Millersville,PA 1755I Emaihwebster(~cs.millersv.edu
FROM
THE
EDITOR
Explore the World of Computer Gaming and Computer Graphics Gordon Cameron SOFTIMAGE, Inc. The February 1997 issue of Computer Graphics contained a focus (expertly guest edited by Mike Milne) on the entertainment industry, but we chose to save an important area of this industry for later investigation. It's with great pleasure that I present that focus on the computer games industry in this May 1998 issue of Computer Graphics. Back in the early 'B0s when I was still in school, I was enthusiastically coding away on a variety of early machines such as the Sinclair ZX8 I, Oric- I, Atari 800XL and Atari ST. At the same time, I spent a great deal of my hard-earned paper-round cash on games for these machines, so it was with great excitement that I recently discovered an on-line "shrine" to the games and their progremmers. James Hague had painstakingly put together a list of"classic game programmers" and in addition had interviewed several of the more revered game designers for a fascinating electronic publication entitled Halcyon Days. Around the same rime, I was trying to put together an issue on computer graphics and the games industry, and so contacted James to see if he might be interested in guest editing such an endeavour. Luckily, he accepted, and ~ e issue in your hands now contains the resulting focus. Over the past decades, computer games have evolved at a remarkable pace. Many of the early titles pushed the platform capabilities, but more recently the games industry is proving one of the major factors in pushing computer graphics in feneral forward at a breakneck pace -- many of the new titles are generating groundbreaking research of their own, and forcing the hardware (and standards) to evolve co keep up,You can pick up a consumer PC with graphics comparable (or superior) to the workstations of a short time ago, at a fraction of the cost today, and this trend is really shaking up our industry and forcing innovations at a startling rate. At the same time, it is worthwhile to Jook back at the amazing things people were doing in the earlier days of computer gaming, with far more limited resources (both technical and human). These early pioneers were
performing minor miracles to achieve effects that today may look somewhat dated bur in their time were bleeding edge, whilst still managing to keep in mind that most important, yet too-oft neglected, aspect --- gameplay. James has done a superb job in gathering together a collection of thoughtful and personalarticles from both past and present which together form a snapshot of the world of computer gaming and computer graphics. My thanks go out to all those who contributed, and especially to James for working under extremely tight deadlines.
Also, once again we have a tremendous series of columns. If you have any comments, I encourage you to drop a note to the columnisl3. For any general questions, ideas, commerits, etc, please feel free to contact me at one of the addresses listed below and I'll do my best to answer -- thank you s o much for your letters over the last few months and, please, keep them cominl! The majority of notes from the last issue complimented the content, for which I'm extremely grateful on behalf of the contributors. However, rather than print only these, I've decided to wait until we have a broad cross section of letters to use in the next Letters column. Until next issue, all the very besT,,and I look forward to seeing some of you at the upcoming SIGGRAPH 98 25th anniversary conference. Gordon Cameron Software Development SOFTIMAGE,Inc. 3510 boul.St-~urent Suite 400 Montn~, Quebec,H2X 2V2 Canada Tel:+ I-51A,aA,5-1636 ~ 3445 Fmc+ I-514-845-5676 Email:Eordon_cameron~sll~q-aph-ori
Computer Graphics ~
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