Package Overview

Posted on July 01, 2008

Another important figure from prefuse official site is the package overview.

Package overview diagram from http://prefuse.org/

This figure represents prefuse's java package structure according to its reference model (or piepeline).

Here I would like to reorganize the package overview diagram and also format them according to the reference model. See following figure.

Package overview according to the reference model.

Package overview according to the reference model.

• Only main packages (first level under prefuse root package) are shown.
• prefuse.data.io is especially for Data Transformations (load Source Data into prefuse internal Data Tables).
• Two important classes: prefuse.Display and prefuse.Visualization.
  • Single prefuse.Display class represents interactive View.
  • prefuse.Visualization is the center repository of whole visualization application.
• Every package (every data and process in prefuse) can affect each other and they work together as pipeline flow.
• Typically interaction events are from user, e.g. mouse movement, key stroke...etc. This would trigger the prefuse.controls components. However a interaction event may be generated from anywhere and directly affect any data or process in visualization, e.g. a time-based animation with varied data or action.

Besides pipeline as reference model, the whole structure (or design pattern) of prefuse framework can be further discovered in software design pattern for information visualization by Jeffrey Heer et al.