Rapid Prototyping of
Visualizations using Mondrian
Adrian Lienhard, Adrian Kuhn and Orla Greevy
Software Composition Group
University of Bern, Switzerland

Co-evolving the visualization
tool with the research process
Requirements not well known upfront
Prototyping can reveal new insights
VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

Shortening the
deployment cycle
Long deployment Changes should be applied
cycles slow down the on the fly and become
devleopment process active immediately
on the fly
stop adapt
experiment compile experiment adapt
setup re-start
in the same time
VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

Dynamic container and
visualization engine
Smalltalk Mondrian
Key features enabling rapid Declarative visualization
prototyping: scripting engine
‣ Hot method recompilation Interaction event handlers
‣ Hot debugging support with block closures for
coordinating composed
views in a tool
VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

Dynamic container and
visualization engine
Smalltalk Mondrian
Key features enabling rapid Declarative visualization
prototyping: scripting engine
‣ Hot method recompilation Interaction event handlers
‣ Hot debugging support with block closures for
coordinating composed
views in a tool
short demo...
VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

2
c
1 b 3
a d
4
e f
VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

Conclusions
‣ Research process and building the
visualization tool should go hand in hand
‣ But, building the tool should not slow down
the reasearch process
‣ Dynamic container and visualization scripting
engine for rapid prototyping
VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

Demo...
VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch

VISSOFT’07 : : Rapid Prototyping of Visualizations using Mondrian : : Adrian Lienhard : : lienhard@iam.unibe.ch