INFORMIX
Visionary User's Guide
Chapter 5: Displaying Data in a Scene
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Creating a Level of Detail in a Data Element

 A level of detail (shown in the interface as LOD) is a view of data associated with a zoom level. Levels of detail enable you to present more (or less) information as you zoom in on a scene or data point. As you zoom in, there are fewer data points displayed, and more screen area is available for showing details.

A transition point is the minimum zoom level at which a level of detail is displayed. When you insert a level of detail, the default level of detail transition point for the new level of detail is 200%, or twice the previous level of detail.

You can create levels of detail for scenes or for data elements. Every data element and scene you create has a default level of detail that is viewed when the scene is at 100% zoom.

In a data element, each level of detail shows data from the same data source and within the same layout. For example, to design a carpool display with the locations of employees' homes, you might create a linear map with three levels of detail for the data element. At the default zoom level (100%), the map displays markers to show the locations of each employee's home. At 200%, the map displays employee names. At 400%, the map displays employee names, phone numbers, and desired commute times. In this example, there are three levels of detail for a single layout and a single data source.

For information about scene levels of detail, see Chapter 8, "Adding Navigation Features to a Scene."

Basic Steps

Follow these steps to add a level of detail to a data element:

    1. Insert a level of detail into the data element.

    2. Insert child objects you want to include in the level of detail.

    3. Modify the objects you insert.

    4. Map data values to the appropriate object.

    You only need to map data values to the object that will represent the data points.

    5. Edit the level of detail transitions, as desired.

    For information about level of detail transitions and instructions on how to edit them, see on-line help.

Example

Suppose you want to insert a second level of detail into the data element of a scatter chart to show additional information about a company. Here is an example of how you might do that.

Each data element has an initial level of detail, so when you insert a new level of detail, it is typically the second level of detail. You can then insert a third, and so on.

To insert a level of detail (LOD) into a data element

    1. In the Scenes panel, right-click the data element where you want to insert a level of detail and select Insert Level of Detail from the popup menu.

    Expand the data element in the Scenes panel to view the new LOD object (LOD2).

    2. Double-click LOD2 to display it in the Data Element Editor.

    3. Choose Insert Alignment Panel so that you can align the objects in the new LOD with the data points in the scatter chart.

    4. Map the column representing the x-coordinate on the chart to the x-coordinate of the alignment panel, as shown in Figure 5-11.

    Figure 5-11
    Mapping salesyear Column to X-Coordinate of Alignment Panel

    Click the column button in the Parameters bar so that a red dot appears.

    5. Map the column representing the y-coordinate on the chart to the
    y-coordinate of the alignment panel.

    Click the column button in the Parameters bar so that a red dot appears.

    6. Delete old location values from the property cell so that only the column names and formatting remain.

    The property cell should look like this: (column1, column2)

    7. Choose Insert Primitive Text so that you can display the additional company information in a Text object in the chart.

    8. Map the column or columns that provide more information about the company-for example a column that contains the company logo-to the Text property.

    9. Select the Font object in the Object Inspector.

    The Font object is a child object of the Text object and should appear in the Object Inspector list box like this: AlignPanel1.Text1.Font1.

    10. Reduce the font size so that when users zoom into the data point, the information is a readable size and data points do not overlap one another.

    11. Click Runtime Mode to view the results.

Tip: Design your data element and levels of detail at the same zoom level as they will appear to the user. When you insert text into a data element or a scene, its font size is set automatically to suit the zoom level. If a user zooms in and the text was not inserted at the same zoom level, the information might be hard to read.
For more information about how to map column names to object properties, see Chapter 7, "Modifying Object Properties."



Visionary User's Guide, version 1.0
Copyright © 1998, Informix Software, Inc. All rights reserved.