G-Vis with Shortest Path

This demo should work for most people with the Java plugin. The client program must make a TCP socket connection to the server on port 4567, which might be rejected by some firewalls. Please contact us if you have trouble. The version that you see here is the stable version of the new Variant of GVIS.

G-Vis is free software, published under the Affero General Public License.

Experimental Version

We are currently adding more features to this variant, you can look out for these at Experiments page. Please note that since we are still experimenting, the site might not be up at all times.

Instructions for the new interface

For purposes of displaying paths, the new interface has 3 tabs - Paths, Lists and Login.

Tab 1 - Paths

1. The 'Start' and 'End' text boxes can be used to populate the start and end co-ordinates. Use the combination "shift + click" to populate Start. Use the combination "control + click" to populate the end co-ordinates.
2. The 'Route Name' is associated with the path whose 'Start' and 'End' have been entered.
3. By clicking on 'Add to current list', the current route gets added to a list (Tab 2 - Lists). One can select from a set of lists or create a new list by going to the Lists tab.

Tab 2 - Lists

1. This Tab allows users to creates different lists, each with multiple routes created within the Paths Tab.
2. The List Name and Description are self explanatory.
3. Each user is provided with a Default List. In case one does not explicitly create a List, one can use the Default list. This list will be visible to all by default.
4. Current Routes can be populated in two ways:
(i) By the 'Add to current list' option on the 'Paths' tab.
(ii) By selecting one of the lists from the 'Lists' drop down box.
5. To display a route, simply select a route if it exists, from the 'Current Routes' drop down box.
6. The 'Save All' option allows the user to save the lists and routes for the current session. In order, to be do so, one needs to create an account, which is very simple.

Tab 3 - Login

In order to save lists and routes, one must have a login account which simply requires a name and a password.

Technical Details

The G-Vis runtime is composed of a Java applet and a server program, also written in Java. The applet makes a TCP socket connection to the server program, which listens on port 4455. (Some firewalls may reject this connection.) The server connects to a database managed by PostgreSQL, and the data is indexed using PostgreSQL's native RTree indexing. The applet may also be run as a stand-alone application. A third program, the pre-processor, converts the raw TIGER data into a more convenient format and stores it in the database.

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