SPUG: Big GraphViz output (like from NYTProf or other call graph generators)

[Michael R. Wolf]

At last night's meeting, I had a side conversation with Dave regarding GraphViz output for very large call graphs.  Dave had problems with some big graphs crashing.

On a Boeing gig a few years ago, I generated a call graph of their SpaghettiPerl.  Fortunately, they had huge plotters that would print wall paper as a visual reference tool.

Fast forward about 5 years.  I could do that in a browser now.

At InfoCamp earlier this month, a common theme was "Zoom is the new search".  Seadragon was at the core of some impressive demos and talks.

The technical, theoretical underpinning summary is that for a cost of only 33% overhead from the size of the original, anything can be decomposed in a way that allows rapid scroll, pan and zoom.  They're talking gigapixel photos and graphics!

This should solve the GraphViz "problem" for call graphs!

There were some impressive demos.  Imagine a multi-thumbnail overview of a PDF document.  A whole PhD dissertation, if you will.  Zoom out.  See the whole structure.  Zoom in to read.  Zoom out then back to the bibliography.  See the citation.  [Drum roll, please....]  Zoom in further and viola.... you're looking at the referenced work in max zoom overview.  Not a hyperlink *navigation* event, but a *zoom* event.

Humans can't think of microseconds and also billions of years, but we need to to understand the big bang and evolutionary times.

Because the field of Big History studies all 13.7 billion years from the Big Bang to the present, a tool to aid the comprehension of time relationships between events, trends and themes is necessary. ChronoZoom is an intuitive, visual approach to fulfilling this void.
Address : <http://eps.berkeley.edu/~saekow/chronozoom/projectinformation/index.html>

ChronoZoom demo:  http://share.seadragon.com/demos/ChronoZoom/firstgeneration.html

Enjoy...


-- 
Michael R. Wolf
    All mammals learn by playing!
        MichaelRWolf at att.net