Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!ucsd!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!constance.rutgers.edu!webber From: webber@constance.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) Newsgroups: comp.graphics Subject: Re: online database graphics Message-ID: Date: 6 May 88 15:42:17 GMT References: <3bd128e8.44e6@apollo.uucp> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 47 In article <3bd128e8.44e6@apollo.uucp>, nelson_p@apollo.uucp writes: >... > A lot of information is better presented graphically. And a lot of > graphical information does not require shading or high resolution. > Graphs, charts, pinouts, maps, parts diagrams, simple schematics > and a lot of other information can be easily represented with simple > 2D line drawing. A simple command set of moves, draws, filled > polygons, text, linestyles and textstyles and maybe patterned fills > or color setting for those systems that can support it would be all > that would be necessary. The average subscriber to these services > probably has at least a PC with mono graphics, CGA or EGA or he has > a Mac. At 1200 baud a simple, low res image of a few hundred line > segments and maybe a little text could be sent in a matter of seconds. > > So why don't we see more use of graphics in online databases? Is the > main problem one of getting the graphical information into the data- > base in the first place? Or is there no standard of the type I suggested > above? (actually this is a good question: IS there such a standard?) > Or do people involved in this kind of stuff not recognize the value of > representing information graphically? Is anyone looking at these kinds > of issues? Actually there are a number of usable standards (NAPLAS, Tek4014, CGM, Unix Plot, being a few that come to mind). Of these, Tek4014 is the one most likely to be supported by a home computer although I don't think it is a standard option on any of them. However, the general availabilty of 1200baud or higher modems and consumer computers that supported Tek4014 graphics is much more recent than the set up of the major online databases you refer to (i.e., at the time they were set up such graphics was less plausible and now they probably would have to do quite a bit of work to upgrade their services to a point where a graphics capability was visible to the average user). There is also a question of setting things up so that people can easily create data in this format (it is almost always easier to type a page full of text than to make just one well-done figure and integrate it into the text (whether one uses computer-aided drawing technology or not)). The computational issues involved are still poorly understood. For example, it was recently shown that figuring out how to lay out a piechart so that the labels to all the regions fit nicely inside the regions rather than crossing the borders or sitting at odd angles (and assuming fixed size character sets) is NP-hard [ref: D. L. Souvaine and C. J. Van Wyk, ``How hard can it be to draw a pie chart,'' Technical Report LCSR-TR-90, Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, May 1987]. ----- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)