Orgcharts

Paul Prescod (papresco@technologist.com)
Tue, 27 Oct 1998 01:51:06 -0500


I'm thinking about the problems of representing graphics with XML. I know
about PGML, VML, etc., but I want to think about subsets of graphics where
the computer can completely handle layout. I want to just tell it what
boxes, lines and labels I want and have it draw them. I don't want to give
it X and Y coordinates for attachment points, boxes, etc.

It seems to me like organization charts should be one such area where
computers can handle the graphical layout themselves. Organization charts
could be used to show corporation hierarchy, the components of a content
model, the parts of an application and other types of hierarchical data.
Even an XML document could be represented as an orgchart.

My question is whether anyone knows of declarative descriptions for
organizational charts or other types of graphical data where the computer
can handle the layout. Are there DTDs, LaTeX packages, subsets of PDF,
APIs etc. worth looking at?

Thanks for any information,

Paul Prescod - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

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