Most documents and applications these days, especially web based, benefit from the judicious use of images and graphics. Whilst it's one thing to create a graphic using office applications or drawing programs, such images stand still and do not change in response to changing situations.
We have developed a number of techniques which can be used to dynamically create or change graphics either in response to a manual input by a user, or indeed creating an updated version of the graphic each time it is viewed.
So why would you want to use such a thing ? Here's a few suggestions for where dynamic graphics can effectively be used:
- Weather maps & gauges
- Enquiries in various queues
- Document (types) in a repository
- Stock quotes
- Display & selection of geographical information
- Comparative performance of different products
- Alert states
- Relationships between companies, markets, products
- Different versions of images to suit different display devices
- Product development time-lines
- Interactive displays of a system or application status
These are some of the applications for which we have developed solutions in recent years. Most of the solutions we develop are server based however some include client elements e.g. the use of Java applets or SVG technology to provide local interactivity for performance reasons.
How it works
Usually a dynamic graphic is generated at the server. Whether deployed as a Java servlet, a script based image generator or using a custom graphics cgi program the principle of operation is the same. Data from somewhere (a data store, the form the user just filled in, a call to a web service, etc.) is fed into the graphics generator which processes it into one or more visual representations be they graphs, picture outlines or some other representation. This graphical information is fed back to the client in the form of one or more images or other, more specialised, files. These are displayed in the user interface either as static images or in a dynamic context either scripted or using Java/SVG.
A more advanced derivative of this approach was used for one of our clients where users required to be able to upload their own image, and then interactively manipulate its size, and other parameters. This solution was realised using a number of advanced client scripting and filtering techniques.
For more information and to discuss your requirements please
contact us.
