Presentation Layer

Updated on July 15, 2009 by KeiOno

Introduction

Presentation layer is the set of actual classes which draws network graphics. From 3.0, Cytoscpae can have multiple presentation per view. This means multiple rendering engines can co-exist in an instance of Cytoscape.

Design

Definitions

Data Model

• All kinds of data objects, including CyNetwork, CyDataTables, VisualStyles, etc.

View Model

• A map from Visual Property type to a value (color, size, ...)
• One View Model is always associated with a data model.
• A data model can have multiple View Models.

Presentation

• Presentation is a visualization of View Model. A View Model can have multiple presentations. In reality, presentation represents a drawing on AWT Canvas or other Swing Components.

API

There are 3 interfaces in Presentation API bundle:

• Visualizer

• VisualItemRenderer

• VisualizerFactory

Discussion

Our overall design (model-view-presentation) does not completely equivalent to typical scene graph used in many 3D visualizers. This design is inspired by Prefuse Visualization Toolkit.

SceneRenderer

ComponentRenderer

Case Study

Visualize Attributes

Relationship between Presentation Layer and Other Modules

VizMap