I'm new to the Java graphics world and I'm trying to decide on the
right approach to take for my application. It's fairly simple. I have
some 2D cross sections that I'd like to allow the user to
layout in relation to each other. The display will be very much like a
blueprint. Here's sort of a rough picture using boxes:
-------------------------------------------------
| |
| |
| ----------------- |
| | | |
| | #3 | |
| | | |
| ----------------- |
| | | |
| |<----- d3 ---->| |
| |
| |
| --------------------------------- |
| | | |
| | #2 | |
| | | |
| --------------------------------- |
| | | |
| |<------------- d2 ------------>| |
| |
| #1 |
| |
-------------------------------------------------
| |
|<---------------------- d1 ------------------->|
The idea is to annotate the drawing with dimensions and let the user
click on those annotations to modify them and, of course, check that
some simple rules aren't violated given the input value. In the above
example each of #1, 2, 3 would have a width annotation, examples of
which are the d1, d2, and d3 shown above, as well as other annotations
not shown above such as height and separation of the objects from each
other, etc.
At first I thought this would be pretty simple to do with just Java2D
but then I found VisAD with things like zooming, cursor tracking, and
3D capabilities that are pretty much ready for prime time. While I
don't have an immediate need for 3D that is in the plans for the
future.
Is VisAD overkill for this application? Should I just start with
Java2D and go from there? Any opinons welcome.
Thanks,
Gary Hennigan
