pcplantdb

[Richard Morris <webmaster@pfaf.org>]

John Howe wrote:
> There seem to be a couple alternates to TouchGraph that may be kinder to
> the web client ( with limited bandwidth, was that jar file 2.6M?  ) and
> make caching of information easier to proxies/upstream mirrors. It may be
> programatically more complex however to implement.
>
> Specifically:
>
> 1. http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/
>
> AT&T's graphviz, accessable via PHP Pear libraries ( PHP
> Pear::Image_GraphViz ), requires netpbm as well.

Seems to create static graphs, rather than dynamic one.
Some reference to DynaDag which I could not find a website for.

> 2. http://webesquema.tucajon.com/
>
> Sort of a tree/class browser ( habla espanol? )

I can see that this could be nice for examining the individual
info on a plant. You could click on a section to expand that info
about the plant.

> Some example php/js/graphviz projects as reference:
>
> http://pathalizer.bzzt.net/
> http://erw.dsi.unimi.it/
> http://urlgreyhot.com/graphviz/

Could you see if
        http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGraphLayout_jre11.html
works for you. This uses the older jre java gui package, which
is much more stable.

> An alternate delivery mechanism could be using GraphViz and dhtml
> mouse-over boxes to image maps ( example @
> http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/, mouse over items in "Download
> von" list ) to the java app in terms of bandwidth/cross-platform broswer
> portability.

Its a very nice interface for popups, all done in a few dozen
lines of javascript and uses dhtml.
Might not work in older browersers (pre version 4).
I might just pince their code.

There might be latency problems, i.e. time it takes to load a new
graph when a user click on a node.

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I am still researching this project, trying to become more familiar with
> the existing upstream projects/standards and tracking biological
> taxonomies in general. Some sites I have been looking at:
>
> http://faculty.washington.edu/mandoli/fuzzyfig.html

Yes fuzziness might be important for guilds. We do seem to
be generating a rather fuzzy description for what a guild is.
No idea as to how the fuzziness could be built in.
For our needs of a plant taxomony then I'm not sure if
fuzziness plays an important role, we are really focussing
on the plants rather than the taxomony.

> http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/treeview.html
> http://tolweb.org/tree/home.pages/techiedetails.html

Tree of Life is an important project. But seems to have poor
coverage of flowering plants.
Seems like there moving to a xml format and integration.
I like the idea of a mapping layer where objects (eg a picture)
could be attached to multiple nodes. And building
nodes from multiple object. No detailed spec as yet,
but watch with interest.

Time for bed. More later!

        Rich

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