Treemap version 0.02 ==================== Traditional representations of hiarchal information trees are very space consuming. There is a large amount of redundant information and padding to convey the tree structure. Treemaps are representations of trees that use space-filling nested rectangles to convey the tree structure. e.g., a directory tree: 2 ./CVS/Root 2 ./CVS/Repository 2 ./CVS/Entries 2 ./CVS/Entries.Log 10 ./CVS 2 ./Treemap/CVS/Root 2 ./Treemap/CVS/Repository 2 ./Treemap/CVS/Entries 2 ./Treemap/CVS/Entries.Log . . . (goes on for 80 lines) e.g., a treemap of a directory tree: .-------------------------------. | ROOT | |.-----------..-------..-------.| ||ImUgly.ttf ||Treemap|| CVS || || ||.-----.|| || || |||Input||| || || ||| || >-----< | || || >---< ||example|| || |||Outpu||| || || ||`_____'|| || |`-----------'`-------'`-------'| `-------------------------------' Raster output is much more useful (like a GIF, or PNG) than ascii, as the labels are scaled appropriately, and alpha transparency is used to show information that would otherwise be hidden. INSTALLATION To install this module type the following: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install DEPENDENCIES This module requires these other modules and libraries: Imager Currently we are only support freetype2 for labelling. Expect Treemap to explode if you don't build Imager with freetype2 support. XML::Simple One pre-requisite it doesn't seem to include of it's own regard when being installed is LWP::UserAgent GOTCHAS When using Treemap::Output::Imager, you may get the mysterious error message: Can't call method "bounding_box" on an undefined value at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/Treemap/Output/Imager.pm line 330. What it's really saying is, "we couldn't find your true type font." THE FUTURE Output Modules: Postscript/PDF, Flash Input Modules: nntp ... and anything else we can build a tree hiarchy out of. Contributions welcomed! COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. (c)2003 Simon P. Ditner , and Eric P. Maki Original Treemap Concept: Ben Shneiderman , http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap-history/index.shtml Squarified Treemap Concept: Visualization Group of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven