At 08:16 AM 4/19/2007, you wrote:

>Finally, and sorry if I ask, but are these swing components?
>Would it be possible to open source them? uDig has a threaded renderer,
>but it's stuck in the SWT/Eclipse RCP api and it's not much of use
>for non uDig developers.

Andrea,

I'm afraid I have to give you a bit of a yes/no answer myself.

The work I am currently doing is for my employer and could not be 
released open source. Also, I am working in the SWT/Eclipse 
framework. So that's the "no" part of the answer.

On the other hand, I am a big fan of open-source software and feel 
that I would like to give something back to the GeoTools community. 
I've been wondering what that could be. I'm thinking that perhaps 
adapting the JMapPane demo to support a multi-threaded approach might 
be a good solution.

Back in 1999, I developed an open-source Java project of my own. The 
project features a little 2-D animation of a robot navigating a 
simulated environment. The graphics are all in the AWT (not even 
Swing).  Anyway, the core of the simulation is a multi-threaded 
scheduler that supports animation and concurrent rendering. The code 
pre-dates the Java concurrency classes now available as part of the 
Java API. Anyway, when I first started my GeoTools/RCP project, I 
planned on adapting my stuff to the problem of making a 
multi-threaded rendering environment with animation (since our 
product tracks real-time aircraft traffic). It turned out to not 
really fit into the RCP environment very well, but is very nicely 
suited for a Swing map-rendering application. So I'm thinking that 
maybe I could offer that to the GeoTools community.

The problem, of course, is that before I offer any code to the world, 
I really must have a better understanding of the GeoTools API. As we 
all know, the thing most sorely lacking in GeoTools is good example 
and tutorial code. Sor a multi-threaded variation on the JMapPane 
demo to be of any value, it really has to also serve as good example 
code, which means that it has to embody "best GeoTools 
practices".  All of which means I really have to understand the stuff 
before I presume to show people how to use it :-)   So it's going to 
be some months before I can even start the effort (which, to be fair 
to my employer, would be have to be done on my own time... another 
thing that would slow the development).  Also, I need to look more 
closely at the Java concurrency classes and see if their solution is 
better suited to the GeoTools rendering problem than my custom code would be.

Gary


P.S. If somebody is already working on something like this and plans 
to give it to the GeoTools community, please let me know so that I 
don't end up duplicating your efforts.




Computer Programming is the Art of the Possible

Gary W. Lucas
Sonalysts, Inc.
215 Parkway North
Waterford CT 06320, USA
(860) 326-3682 




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