The Scientific Graphics Toolkit

The Scientific Graphics Toolkit (sgt), a set of java graphics classes, was developed to allow a NOAAServer user to interactively preview and overlay plots. Sgt was designed to allow a graphics developer a great deal of flexibility and freedom in producing graphics applications. Support for multiple transformations, X-Y plots, contour and “pixel” plots, and vector plots are part of Sgt. Sgt also provides developer support to allow users to zoom a graph, select graphical elements using a mouse, and interactively edit graphical elements. The first sgt applications include the NOAAServer Prototype data browser (Brazille et al., 1997) and a collaborative tool for the visualization of distributed data sets (Denbo and Windsor, elsewhere in these proceedings). Sgt enables a user to preview and overlay plots from multiple datasets that are stored on different servers. Sgt is currently implemented using the Java JDK 1.1. Future plans include porting Sgt to JDK 1.2 and the Java2D AP1. The new features of Java2D will enable sgt to support line styles (e.g. dashed, line widths), rotation of text at arbitrary angles, and improved font capabilities