anemone, pre-alpha release

august 1996

Anemone.tar.gz

anemone was originally written as a tool for drawing graphs, butit is currently evolving into a network visualization tool. its primary features of interest are the abilities to: (1) zoom in to desired level of detail; and (2) interactively place/move nodes.

anemone has been generally useful but still needs a lot of work. but its utility ( ndtools.readme.html) compels us to release it now, in hopes of getting feedback and suggestions for its intended release.

Anemone is public domain. forgive the three sets of copyrights -- all basically specify that you can use, change, and redistribute anemone for whatever purposes you desire.
as usual, examples, suggestions and patches are welcome.

Eric Hoffman

hoffman@ipsilon.com

anemone syntax

Anemone uses a startup file that holds node positions, which can be retained across runs. Although a bit clumsy, this feature is useful for some applications, e.g., using anemone to create animations. Future releases of anemone will use a more editor-like mode, where multiple networks can be loaded and saved.

-startup filename: override the compiled-in startup default
-ps: write a postscript file to STDOUT with the top level transform given the first snap (snapshot, or refresh screen according to current data set) command or the implicit snap at the end of reading STDIN
-x [display]: bring up an X display (the default) with the optional display string
-load filename: load skip commands from filename
-sync_load filnename: load skip commands from filename, but block until file read completes. by default anemone interleaves loads from separate files as well as user input.
-xoff float: world-to-display x-axis translation coordinates (for generating postscript files)
-yoff float: world-to-display y-axis translation coordinates (for generating postscript files)
-xscale float: world-to-display x-axis scaling factor (for generating postscript files)
-yscale float: world-to-display y-axis scaling factor (for generating postscript files)
-ndt: read ndt format from STDIN instead of using skip commands
-font x-font-name: specify font (for buttons and labels)
-connect host port: create a TCP connection to the given host/post, tying it to a skip interpreter session (see below).

anemone input file syntax

anemone uses an interpreted language node_position_file filename

  node nodename	 		            		
  edge fromnode tonode edgename           
  #  (where   edgename can be {} (empty string) )
  background_line color width { 
 x y                    
 ...                                  
 }                                    

  edge_property edge propname propval 
  node_property node propname propval
  autosize              		        	
  sleep interval 		        

  xscale float   		       
  yscale float			      
  group parent something  ... 
  snap             			        
  node_hint nodename x y shape width height 

  load filename                   
  sync filename                  
  load_ndt  filename

anemone interactive buttons:

(several of these actually don't do anything useful right now)

postscript: saves postscript file of current view
save startup: saves current startup file
autoplace: selected nodes will try to place themselves
autosize: maximize graph size without changing aspect

work in progress:

editor-like semantics
dynamic panes for multiple graph displays and text display/entry
interaction between ndtools and generators with anemone
decent edge and interface labels
better internal newtonian interactive placement heuristic
upgraded postscript support for shapes
re-integration of SNMP support from Vince
re-integration of chart display for real-time statistics
allow specification of different fonts within graph

things we will never do to anemone:

bitmapped icons for nodes
pseudo-nodes in edges (required by some layout algorithms)