xml-dev - Re: Orgcharts

[Betty Harvey <harvey@eccnet.eccnet.com>]

Take a look at a http://www.infosphere-inc.com/topaz/.  Mark Roberts,
Infosphere, has developed a program that can generate graphics in SGML,
as well as import all versions of CGM (I-IV) to SGML.  They have a JAVA
plug-in for Netscape that renders the graphics and makes them interactive.

Mark came to the Washington Area SGML Users Group meeting last week
and demonstrated the Beta version of the product they are calling
Topaz.  It is really pretty cool and I see a lot of applications 
for it especially in the IETM area.

The difference between what they are doing and what VML is doing is the
graphic primitives are in elements rather than attributes and provide
a lot more intelligence.  He is working on creating a filter from the
SGML graphic to VRML.

The cool thing is that this is useful from Orgcharts all the way to
complex 3D graphics.  Schematics have always been a real problem in
on-line presentation - this provides some interesting options for
schematics and schematic type flowcharts.

Betty

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Betty Harvey                           | Phone: 301-540-8251 FAX: 4268
Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc.   | 
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On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Paul Prescod wrote:

> I'm thinking about the problems of representing graphics with XML. I know
> about PGML, VML, etc., but I want to think about subsets of graphics where
> the computer can completely handle layout. I want to just tell it what
> boxes, lines and labels I want and have it draw them. I don't want to give
> it X and Y coordinates for attachment points, boxes, etc.
> 
> It seems to me like organization charts should be one such area where
> computers can handle the graphical layout themselves. Organization charts
> could be used to show corporation hierarchy, the components of a content
> model, the parts of an application and other types of hierarchical data.
> Even an XML document could be represented as an orgchart.
> 
> My question is whether anyone knows of declarative descriptions for
> organizational charts or other types of graphical data where the computer
> can handle the layout. Are there DTDs, LaTeX packages, subsets of PDF,
> APIs etc. worth looking at?
> 
> Thanks for any information,
> 
>  Paul Prescod  - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco
> 
> Marge: "It's almost as if Snake is killing from beyond the grave."
> Lisa: "I warned you that capital punishment wouldn't be a deterrent."
> 	- The Simpson's halloween special: "Hell Toupee"
> 
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