PipelineBrowser

Overview

The following is a gathering of requirements and comparison with other applications to help decide how to present management of the VTK pipeline in the GUI. The GUI developers don't yet know which presentation method to use. We'd like feedback and direction on which way to do it.

Requirements

• support multiple pipelines
• not take up too much screen real estate
• clear representation of connections
• clear representation of pipelines objects with multiview and histogram
• create, edit and manage pipeline
• support 3d widgets
• support property linking
• support macros

Other Applications

opendx
SCIRun
VTK Designer
MayaVi

Idea 1

Have a workspace for manipulating pipeline similar to SCIRun and VTK Designer. This takes up a good amount of screen space. An issue with this way, although it is really cool, is that it easily divides users. You'll get some who love it, and some who hate it, but not much in between.

Idea 2 (most similar to current ParaView)

Use a table for managing linked properties. Use Object Inspector to handle multiviews, where it provides a combo box of which view to put the object in. Use Object Inspector to manage connections. Provide a read-only graphical & compact view of the pipeline to satisfy other requirements not met already. It may not be as clear as idea 1 when it comes to understanding the pipeline.

Idea 3

Same as Idea 2 but use a Tree View (as MayaVi) instead of a graphical representation. A tree view may seriously lack in presenting a clear picture of the pipeline connections.

More??

Any other ideas?