filename : infovis98 title : IVORY - An Object-Oriented Framework for Physics-Based Information Visualization in Java author : T. C. Sprenger, M. H. Gross, D. Bielser, T. Strasser type : inproceedings organisation : Institute for Information Systems, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich month : August year : 1998 keywords : three-dimensional information visualization, physics-based graph layout, object-oriented visualization toolkit, multidimensional information modeling, time varying data language : english pages : 9 abstract : We present IVORY, a newly developed, platform-independent framework for physics-based visualization. IVORY is especially designed for information visualization applications and multidimensional graph layout. It is fully implemented in Java 1.1 and its architecture features client-server setup, which allows to run the visualization even on thin clients. In addition, VRML 2.0 exports can be viewed by any VRML plugged-in WWW-browser. Individual visual metaphors are invoked into IVORY via an advanced plug-in mechanism, where plug-ins can be implemented by any experienced user. The configuration of IVORY is accomplished using a script language, called IVML. Some interactive visualization examples, such as the integration of an haptic interface illustrate the performance and versatility of our system. Our current implementation supports NT 4.0.