A Structured 2D Graphics Framework


Piccolo2D is a toolkit that supports the development of 2D structured graphics programs, in general, and Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs), in particular. A ZUI is a new kind of interface that presents a huge canvas of information on a traditional computer display by letting the user smoothly zoom in, to get more detailed information, and zoom out for an overview. We use a "scene graph" model that is common to 3D environments. Basically, this means that Piccolo2D maintains a hierarchal structure of objects and cameras, allowing the application developer to orient, group and manipulate objects in meaningful ways.


What exactly is it? Piccolo2D is a layer built on top of a lower level graphics API. There are currently three versions of the toolkit: Piccolo2D.Java, Piccolo2D.NET and PocketPiccolo2D.NET (for the .NET Compact Framework). The java version is built on Java 2 and relies on the Java2D API to do its graphics rendering. The .NET version is built on the .NET Framework and relies on the GDI+ API to do its graphics rendering. This makes it easy for Java and C# programmers, even those targeting PDAs, to build their own animated graphical applications. And best of all, Piccolo2D is free and open source!



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