When I tell you that I've made a program that graphs CVS source trees using 3-D networks of color-coded spheres, you may ask: "Y'know ... is that really neccessary? Is CVS a virtual world that you really want to climb into?" The answer to both questions is "I was very drunk at the time."

Actually this is just a little exercise in using the Java MesaGL libraries (probably should use Java3D at this point, huh?), parsing Java source, and in physics modeling. The balls are modeled as if they were attached by springs, and each ball has a slight repelling force. The size of the balls is based on the size of its file in CVS. The links between balls are determined by what objects are referenced in each file.

The upshot of this is that the balls will spread out until they reach equilibrium, and end up looking quite nice. Since the graph models CVS usage over time, you can see stuff pop in & out of existence as files are added to or removed from.

There's probably a practical use for all this ... if you think of one, let me know ;-)

Here's some balls

Here's some more balls