f13.net

In short: for work, I need to build a really, really complicated org chart. Thousands of nodes, complex interconnections (not just easy "flows from the top down", a lot of lines going from/to weird places).  I need some way to construct the org chart visually, and then put it on the web in zoomable form. (Ideally not just as a massive image file, but something dynamically generated where it's vector rather than bitmap, so zooming in doesn't make things blurry and zooming out it's still readable)

This seems like the sort of thing that you'd think there would be tons of tools out there for already. But so far the only tools I've found that can help me build this sort of thing are just like "either you're a programmer or GTFO". Maybe I'm using the wrong search terms?

I'm pretty handy with i2/Analyst's Notebook, so if there's some way to use Analyst's Notebook files and easily put them online, that would be a strong possibility. Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

ya know, this is a bizzare idea, but it kinda fits the question:   :grin:

maybe try it in VRML, or better yet set up an Open Sim (freebie version of Second Life) and do it there for free as long as you host it on your own machine (no problem if you can limit to less than 5 or 10 or so users at a time).  Use shapes and colors as needed for categorizing things.  zoom in as close as you want to one node or out to see the whole thing, from any angle.  Consumers can log in with an avatar to fly around and see what they want to see, or you can script and capture a fly-through video to make a presentation of it.

thousands of nodes aren't going to all be both visible and readable at once no matter what you do or what medium you do it in.You might could do it in a football stadium with posterboards for nodes or something but even then you'd need good binoculars to read the farthest nodes.

I've used GraphViz for something like this before, but yeah, it does require someone program up the interface between the data source and the final format, and it can be a pain to set up.  It also fails on your requirements of not being one giant image, but I've used it to create organized flowcharts to pipe data sets to a web page before.  My personal experience was using it with ruby on rails though, using a library that interfaces in between the two.  Mostly just throwing this out there in case it helps any.

http://www.graphviz.org/
https://github.com/glejeune/Ruby-Graphviz
http://www.omninerd.com/articles/Automating_Data_Visualization_with_Ruby_and_Graphviz

I too was going to recommend GraphViz.  Not sure what the programmatic interface is like but I figure the thing to do would be to use GraphViz to lay everything out in "space" and then do your own rendering with JS or whatever so you can zoom in and view individual parts rather than having one giant image.

Another option might be using the Google Maps API, like that Minecraft map thing that someone set up.  I assume that works by giving it a set of giant image files that it chunks up and loads dynamically on the client as they zoom and pan.

Thousands of nodes means that it will not be readable when zoomed out, period.  Your screen is only a couple of thousand pixels wide.

http://prezi.com (flash-based) allows you to make pan/zoom presentations easily, but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it for thousands of nodes. Sure is flashy (dohohoho), though.

Other than that, I can third graphviz - if it can make UML diagrams for ridiculously complex programs, it can make organizational charts :awesome_for_real:. I'm not well-versed with jquery, but it has to have some data visualization libraries as well...

SharePoint has that built in.  :why_so_serious:

Yeah, SP has it built in.  Only $1500 per seat! ;)

Pretty sure we have a SharePoint license kicking around that noboy's using at the moment. :D didn't realize it could publish live to the web.

Thanks for the advice, all! Google Maps API also looks like a strong contender...

Edit: I'm not sure SP permissions would allow me to publish it to the live web wherever I want, though :X wouldn't it be stuck on my company's SP server? Ideally I'd want a copy of this on my personal non-company webpage too, down the road. Not well versed in SP though, so I might have this all wrong.

I haven't read the thread, but I'll do it for half what that other guy asked.

Just 10$ for a quicky? Now that's a bargain. :why_so_serious:

You probably don't want to publish all the stuff that SP would pick up from AD anyway.

Here's an overview of SP's way of doing it (I hope you like Silverlight). Pretty sure it isn't exactly what you need in reality.

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/product/pages/Feature-Details.aspx?Capability=Communities&FeatureID=79