>> Hi Alexandre, I only have very limited experience with Mondrian, so >> please excuse me if this is a stupid question. Is it possible to >> employ an Iterator to simply draw on a raster image rather than >> creating a model in RAM? Perhaps it could be an option? Would it be >> hard to make Mondrian work this way? > > I am not sure what you mean by raster image.
Raster image = bitmap. As you know, bitmaps have the ability, no matter whether you render 1 node or 1-billion nodes and edges on it, it does not take up much more space. But because Mondrian builds an object-model in RAM (from which it renders), there is a definite scalability limit in terms of the number of nodes. Rendering also takes more time due to object-allocation, etc. The only reasons I can think to need to create a full domain model of the graph is: 1) to calculate positioning 2) for user-input; being able to drag the nodes around (thus updating the Mondrian domain model, for subsequent display updates). (1) _might_ be able to be accomodated by, when generating the picture, only keeping track of various node counts at each level and/or overall bounds of the picture. (2) is what I'm arguing might not be a good trade-off in all cases. Sure, the output is now a static picture instead of something with draggable boxes, but at the cost of speed and scale. Does that make sense? I find Mondrian interesting, thanks for your feedback. - Chris
