Constellation Framework 0.3 Released!

Rolling out the latest version of Constellation Framework today with a lot of improvements! Probably the biggest benefit is the huge performance improvement but a lot of features have been added to the API as well.

40% Faster

The CPU load of the physics engine is the big limiting factor in animated graph visualizations. That's why we spent so much time optimizing and testing to get as much speed out of the Flash Player as possible.

Previous versions of Constellation Framework would start to choke when displaying over 50 nodes on the screen. Approach 100 nodes and the user experience was severely compromised.

With the performance optimizations you can animate 300 nodes with full physics quite comfortably. And larger datasets can still be displayed by precalculating layouts or using simpler layout algorithms.

Here's an example of a sparse graph with 300 nodes.

New Layout Behaviors

Even more layouts are possible by combining the effects of different behaviors. Existing classes have been optimized and several new ones have been added. That includes several "layout behaviors" which move nodes to calculated positions instead of using the force-directed physics engine.

The new layout behaviors can place nodes in horizontal or vertical trees, or tightly-packed spirals.

For additional flexibility, the behaviors can be applied to subsets of nodes. That means you can combine a spring layout with a static layout.

In the example below, force-directed spring behaviors are used alongside three tree layout behaviors. The trees are rooted at the three dark purple nodes.

Graph Views

Some visualizations display the data exactly as received but in many instances it needs to be filtered. The graph view classes provide several ways of filtering graph data.

They make it easier to do things like:

• Display a tree rooted at a particular node.
• Run custom node and edge filters.
• Display particular nodes and the shortest paths between those nodes.

You just feed the incoming graph data into the the view's model property and it will calculate the resulting graph for you. When the model changes, the graph view class will make sure it stays up-to-date.

Finally, the new ChainedGraphView class allows you to combine the filters in series.

More Features

The latest version of Constellation Framework also includes an updated physics engine, new graph loading and parsing classes, and XML instantiation and initialization methods.

We hope you're just as excited about the future of Framework as we are. The new version makes a lot of common visualizations much easier to build, and adds some exciting possibilities!

Happy coding!