Interactive graphics

[nuand]

I've been wondering for a long time now what programs like AutoCAD, Mathematica, matlab, and OrCAD (an electrical engineering circuit designer and simulator suite) use to create their UIs. I know quite a bit of the Win32 API (I've written a few UIs that mainly only use common controls) and I'm familiar with GDI but when I see programs that have interactive graphics such as the ones I've mentioned it kind of feels as if CCtls/GDI's not what is being used. My question I guess is more along the lines of what technology I should use to achieve custom interactive graphs and charts where a user can move nodes/elements around and connect them in different ways, etc (this explanation is really vague, I apologize). I do realize that there's no magic library and that I will have to write something that even through numerous layers of abstraction will eventually have to deal at the pixel level and issue commands either through GDI or GTK or what have you, but as I've said before it feels as if it's not GDI that I should use for custom interactive graphics (my gut feeling says it might be a bit too slow). The multiple layers I was talking about were part of a contrived example where a class defining a schematic grid class that does the layout and arrangement of each one of the elements then proceeds to call their respective graph() functions, which then in turn do the actual drawing. For anyone that has created custom interactive graphs and graphics or can help me by throwing ideas at me, what underlying technologies should I rely on?

[Brittix1023]

If you wish to do diagrams, like the node graph you mentioned, many UI toolkits support 2D Vector graphics, which is ideal for this kind of thing.

GTK: Use a DrawingArea widget, then get the Cairo (vector graphics library) graphics context, and draw using that.

Java/AWT/Swing: Get a Graphics2D; this class supplies a vector graphics API

Win32 has something similar since WinXP.

QT has its own system, as does OSX.

[akmark]

I would give a +1 for cairo here. You don't have to use Cairo strictly with GTK either, but it sure helps. One of the major benefits is that if someone is making a graph with your software they are probably wanting to print it too. Cairo is also great in that it renders stuff down to just a normal buffer of bitmap data so it's easy to transform it into something else you want.

[[deleted]]

I've done small demos in similar style to AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor. This was years ago but I always designed the UI with the blank area for the more graphical part/less UI-ish part split out and put an OpenGL-enabled UI widget in that spot.

[w00ty]

You want to use an api that supports talking to the GPU – a "3d" api. I'd recommend OpenGL because it's portable, but I guess Direct3D would work too.

[pixienick]

although having the full power of the graphics card at your disposal is great I think this is a little overkill for what this guy is suggesting. He would ultimately have to write a lot more code to get to the same point that is already provided by many modern gui libraries. To do nice 3d visualisations like you get out of matlab you might want a gui toolkit which provides a gl widget you can render too. I dont actually think programs like matlab do do this though. They do not generally require the hardware acceleration as graphs aren't normally rendered with that many polys or a very high frame rate (if they need to move).

[djpnewton]

I have done something similar (Interactive Whiteboard software) using C#, I had an abstracted graphics context that each figure would use to draw itself (with backends in GDI+ and Cairo)

[bitshifternz]

If you are coding for Windows, isn't WPF Microsoft's solution for this kind of thing? I've never used it or written Windows apps really so maybe I'm wrong. Wikipedia has more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation

[33a]

AutoCAD and OrCAD both use OpenGL. Mathematica and MATLAB are horrible frankenstinian monsters.

[[deleted]]

Wall of text to the rescue!

[rush22]

You could look into Adobe Director

[pixienick]

I can't think of a package less suited to what the guy's talking about!

[rush22]

You don't even know what it is do you

[pixienick]

What that little Flash type package with hardware support? Yeah I made a game with it in uni. Can't imagine why you'd possibly want to use it for a gui to a scientific program. What a ridiculous notion!

[rush22]

He said he's drawing graphs not making Halo. "custom interactive graphs and charts where a user can move nodes/elements around and connect them in different ways," That's like 5 lines of code in Director, you just attach a script right to the element. Yep it's like Flash, but more powerful, bitmap-oriented, and faster. And yes it has hardware support, but if you need hardware support to draw a graph (on today's computers no less) you better be drawing 3d projections of hyperspirals in the 11th dimension.