Homepage: atl.ndsu.edu/home


Aaron Bergstrom from NDSU provided us a nice history of Swing and Java 3D^TM use at the Archaeology Technologies Laboratory:

"Our first 3D viewer was actually IBM's HotMedia applet that was (for all intents and purposes) just embedded in a JFrame. As an experiment we created the World Endocast Viewer application using this viewer. The World Endocast Viewer is visualized in jpg's 8-10."
http://atl.ndsu.edu/wev

"Our second 3D viewer was developed in Java 3D, though it retained the ability to display HotMedia 3D files. It went by the name Java Artifact Explorer (JAE). This viewer was built into our DANA application or rather the client application for the Digital Archive Network for Anthropology (DANA). Screenshots of DANA can be seen in jpg's 1-6. Examples of DANA's search interface in jpg's 1-3, it's 2D graphics viewr in jpg 4, and it's 3D viewer - the JAE - can bee seen in jpg's 5 & 6."
http://atl.ndsu.edu/archive

"Our next generation of 3D viewers will be built completely out of Java 3D and the Java Fly Through 2.0 classes . It will feature the ability to load many file formats in addition to J3F and VRML. Once ready for release, the new viewer now titled the DANA 3D Viewer will become part of DANA's latest client application. Support for HotMedia has been dropped in the latest version. Both the old JAE and the new DANA 3D Viewer feature measurement tools for use in archaeology and physical anthropologyresearch."
http://atl.ndsu.edu/resources/dana 3d.php

"DANA is a multi-tiered application that uses the Java programming language for both the client and sever levels. The Java Web Start client sends an XML request to a Java servlet. Since there is capabilities for multiple data providers, some requests are further forwarded to servlets for each data provider. Results are then routed back to the client for display. Therefore DANA is designed to provide anthropology researchers and educators with the ability to download 2D photos and 3D models of archaeological artifacts, physical anthropology specimens such as fossils, and other materials to which they would not ordinarily have access due to cost or location."
http://atl.ndsu.edu/archive

"DANA is funded the National Science Foundation - National Science Digital Libraries initiative."

Homepage: www.ecsi.com.au

Michael Wever sent us this nice description of the Minex5 application:

"Minex is the world's most advanced and highly regarded coal modeling and mine planning software. It has been developed in partnership with the worlds leading coal operations since 1970, and continues at the forefront of the industry today."

"Using Strings and Surfaces, Minex5 instantly displays data and provides rapid reporting of location and area as well as complex volume calculations. The plan and section capability allows the user to quickly and easily produce quality plots required for every facet of earth operations."

If the Minex5 GUI looks familiar, that's because it's based on the NetBeans user interface. There are about a dozen (non-IDE) apps we know of that have taken this approach, for the list of companies/projects see http://www.netbeans.org/about/third-party.html

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Homepage: www.tt-ft.com

Track World Trader from Tracker Technology is a "multi exchange and multi chart trading system with chart layering, enabling the trader to exploit the worlds' derivative markets." The developers also told us that it's a "system that optimises automatically, displaying market direction signals to help traders clearly identify real time market trends."

If you've got friends that trade derivatives, send them over!

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Homepage: www.aquafold.com

The developer of Aqua Data Studio sent us this description of his freeware app:

"Aqua Data Studio is a FREE SQL editor and developer tool that allows developers to easily create, edit, and execute SQL scripts, as well as browse database structures.

Aqua Data Studio provides an integrated database environment with a single consistent interface to all major relational databases. This allows the DBA or developer to tackle multiple tasks simultaneously from one application. Aqua Data Studio's sophisticated Query Analyzer allows users to work on database scripts with specific RDBMS syntax highlighting and auto-completion to develop and test scripts, including detailed client statistical information and multi-grid results. Its graphical browsing capabilities allow you to understand the structure and dependencies of the database schema at a click of a mouse. It also includes the ability to save your
query results in many formats including HTML and XML."

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Homepage: drjava.sourceforge.net

Here's a nice description of this IDE from the site's home page:

"DrJava is a lightweight development environment for writing applications with the Java programming language. It is designed primarily for students, providing an intuitive interface and the ability to interactively evaluate code. It also includes powerful features for more advanced users. DrJava is available for free under an open source license (GPL), and it is under active development by the JavaPLT group at Rice University."

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Homepage: www.guiffy.com

Guiffy is a commercial compare/merge application that's been around for quite a while. It's one of the few apps we've seen that's still supported on 1.1.8 with Swing 1.1! Bill Ritcher was kind enough to send us this pitch for his 5 Cows rated app:

"Guiffy features 2-way and 3-way smart, 'SureMerge', interfaces. Compare and Merge interfaces support Editing and Undo. Guiffy's 3-way "SureMerge" is the most advanced smart/auto merge technology --- redefining 'state-of-the-art'".

If you merge (we all do) then this is an app worth checking out.

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Homepage: www.infotectonica.com

Infotectonica founder and CEO Carlo Walentiny was kind enough to send us this description of Juliet which includes the Swing Sightings debut of the term "wetware":

"Juliet from Infotectonica SA is a utility for developers that provides Instant Code Comprehension. It allows developers to immediately answer questions about the code semantics directly from the source base itself, and it does so using a simple search and navigate model that speaks directly to the way that developers think and work. Juliet is the system's encyclopedia and, in effect, allows developers to keep entire systems in their heads at once. In software engineering for the Java platform, Juliet is the great stabilizer. Juliet lets programmers enter a steady state where they can mechanically maintain a level of understanding unattainable by wetware alone."

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Homepage: www.oxygenxml.com

Here's an XML editor that can be DTD or schema driven and that runs everywhere. It's available as a web-started app a plugin-enabled applet, or as a component for applications. The editor offers all the usual features and gets extra credit for things like DTD generation, syntax error report linking, loads of printing options, drag and drop support. We always say that the Java programming language is for encoding semantics and XML is for data. So oXygen is for editing your data. That sounds pretty useful.

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Homepage: www.sqldesktop.com

Rene LEVANTINH was kind enough to send us the brief description of the sqlDesktop tool for organizing browsing and searching all the stuff that clutters your filesystem. "Our goal when designing sqlDESKTOP is to make Linux more "user friendly" than Windows and to offer a risk-free migration path from Windows to Linux desktops. sqlDESKTOP runs on Windows and Linux (soon on Mac)."

sqlDESKTOP is definitely one of the more unusual organizer GUIs we've seen!

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Homepage: squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net

Squirrel is an extensible opensource application for viewing and interacting with JDBC-compliant databases. It's deployed with IzPack, comes with plugins for JEdit. Squirrel itself is extensible, using its own plugin framework.

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Homepage: www.jonelo.de/java/nc

We see examples of some application categories all the time. Database viewers and tools, special purpose IDEs, email and chat clients, financial applications, and so on, are submitted regularly (and we're thrilled!). Numerical Chameleon is an application that requires a new category. It's an application for converting numbers. And that's like saying the RMS Queen Mary is a boat. From Johann Loefflmann's Numerical Chameleon home page:

"The NumericalChameleon converts numbers with a precision of up to 1000 significant figures! It supports more than 1600 units in 75 categories, including lengths, areas, volumes, durations, bits & bytes, angles, temperatures, exchange rates, roman numerals, spoken numbers, colorcodes, unicodes, all 35 radixes, and more."

You've got to see this to believe it. In fact you can "hear" it too. This app speaks volumes. Literally.

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