jogl and scientific visualization

OpenGL Development JOGL Development
#1

Hi,

I have some experience in openGL in C++ but naive in java. I have a basic question. My aim is to develop a web-based application that visualizes somewhat scientific data. For example, to generate star plots, parallel coordinates etc
(probably a lot more than that). The program is written in C++ to which I want to give web interface.

I may have to create a session for every user and generate the graphics depending on the data given by the user. So, each user has different data(probably on the server). Actual idea is to allow people to use the web interface to analyze and visualize the data.

So, can the webstart application get data from the server for each user separately if needed? Also, I am in great dilemma whether to use applets or use webstart? I couldn’t find any links specifying the differences between these two? How would that affect my application.

Any help is greatly appreciated as I have to make a decision as early as possible.

#2

Webstart is going to be the better way to go for this sort of application. More freedom to do what you need and less performance impact that a web browser imposes on it’s contained applets.

Webstart is somewhere between a local application and an applet. Providing you sign your webstart application correctly, you can do almost everything a normal application can do - including making connections back to a server. Applets have a hard time with this (though it is possible, there’s more hoops to jump through). The other negative is that an applet would need to be downloaded every time, where a webstart application can be downloaded once and cached on the local machine. If the application is of any size, then this is an important consideration.

#3

Applets or webstart applications are allowed to connect to the server they came from. So you won’t need to sign it for that reason, but you need signing for using a native lib (eg an opengl binding).

I admit that I prefer webstart in general… however in this case I cannot even come up with a single argument for using an applet… it just doesnt make any sense.

#4

Thank you very much. I will go ahead and start using webstart.