-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Greetings, coders and jurnos. I need some help and/or advice.
I have a proof-or-concept demo at http://bl.ocks.org/4589092 of semi-manual layout of cablegate reference graphs generated with http://wlwardiary.github.com/cable2graph/ using the http://d3js.org visualization library. There are screenshots at https://pic.twitter.com/0uiXBUxq and https://pic.twitter.com/AwA7MZJF but the demo only shows the cluster you see in the first screenshot. If you download the code from https://gist.github.com/4589092 you also have the other graph's json file, as well as a third one. What next? All this is nice as a proof-of-concept, but I hope to be able to turn this into a web service that lets generate such graphs on the fly (for example as a result of a text search in the cable db). So far, the main problem with providing cable2graph as a web service was layout: 1) It is costly for the server to do it. Better if the user sees the algorithm at work for a few seconds as a psy-screensaver-like animation on the browser :) 2) Layout is still something people do better than machines. See for example https://pic.twitter.com/0uiXBUxq (d3) vs https://dubiousdod.org/fil-mish-mish (cable2graph "classique") Now that it works, I think I can write such a server, but I could use some help/advice from you: Journos I'd like to hear some feedback whether such a tool could be helpful for you. Please take a look at the demo and get a feel of it. Assume that you'll be able to build graphs containing cables you're interested in and search for those cables via an interface similar to http://cablesearch.org/ Do you think such a tool could be useful for you? What would like to see added or changed? D3 wizards and javascriptas This is what I've managed to achieve as a d3 noob, so I'm sure you could do a much better visualization. We'll also need additional gui (timeline, server interaction, etc.) that can be done in "traditional" js/jquery, but it would be more consistent, aesthetic and easier to maintain if we do the whole gui in d3. Graph/network analysts The cable2graph project itself probably has hidden potential I'm not aware of. At the moment, I only plan to supply a front-end for the nbh (neighbourhood graph) utility, but maybe you can come up with other graphs and graph/node/link properties we could generate from this material (igraph seems like a fun python library). Server side should probably be in python (because cable2graph is) and can/should be minimal for easier deployment (e.g. bottle or flask), but I believe I'll use web.py as a tribute to its author :) Comments are, of course, welcome. Thanks, The Dod -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlECfIMACgkQp1i9N8LBrvu7rwCeOA9aeQxnWV2MJG+MtgEcRewy kfkAnjy0J+Y6AP9nSVVKc2EmjTrljsgU =Scb1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
