Introducing Perspectives 11.0

We are excited to announce the Perspectives 11.0 release! Released on June 28, 2023, this release includes several features that make it easier to use and deploy Perspectives applications.

Prepare to be amazed!

Empower Users with the New Query Builder

The new query builder makes it simple for non-technical end users of your Perspectives application to interact with graph database data without the need to know the Gremlin or Cypher database query languages.

You can invoke the query builder from either a toolbar button or context-menu item, and it will automatically create Gremlin or Cypher queries based on user input.

Users of your Perspectives-built application will be able to:

• Select an element type from the list of allowed element types
• Select if the attribute conditions are joined with an AND or OR operator
• Add new attribute conditions
• Select the type of comparison that will be performed on the attributes
• Set a limit for the number of results returned by the query

When opening the Query Builder dialog, it is pre-populated with the last configuration so users have quick access to often-repeated queries.

Query graph databases without the need to know Gremlin or Cypher.

Reveal Graph Details with the Magnifier Tool

The new magnification tool allows users to interactively see more details in their graph visualizations. This tool can be accessed through the magnifier toolbar item or used as part of the Select tool in drawing and map views. And, while working through the Select tool, users can also select nodes and edges.

The magnification factor and size of the magnifier can be configured specifically for your application.

The magnifier tool shows a car theft ring which is part of a larger crime network.

Speed Deployment of Applications

Building upon the View Layout and Generate Web Application Code features released in Perspectives 10.2, release 11.0 now makes it easier to deploy Perspectives applications to Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform environments. With the enhanced Generate Web Application Code feature, you can now take advantage of automatically generated scripts and readme files to speed deployment to these environments.

The enhanced readme files walk you through how to:

• build your application for your Docker, Kubernetes, or Terraform application deployment environment,
• use the scripts to deploy the application locally for review, and
• deploy the reviewed application to the end environment.

With 11.0, it's faster than ever to create scalable graph visualization and analysis applications.

Deploy scalable graph visualization and analysis applications to Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform environments faster than ever.

Layout Improvements

Our graph layout is the best, but it's even better with these improvements: 

• Improved hierarchical layout for nested drawings further reduces the number of edge crossings. This is especially important for applications that show relations through containment or those that need data abstraction, such as showing the backbone of a communications network.

Improved hierarchical layout reduces crossings in visualizations with nested drawings.

• A new option to sort disconnected nodes into a grid structure provides fine-grained control over the placement of disconnected nodes. The centers of nodes can be aligned in rows or columns, and positioned on grid points enabling you to support customized graph visualizations in your application.

An example Perspectives application showing logistics for package distribution with sorting of disconnected nodes into a grid structure.

And That's Not All!

Perspectives 11.0 has more features than we can cover in a single blog, but here is a peek at more features included in this release:

• Improved memory management when signing off a Perspectives application built with Spring Boot

• Improved default settings in the RDF integrator
• Improved position of edge labels in Bundle layout
• Added capability to alphabetically sort attributes at runtime for dynamically defined inspectors
• Several quality improvements in Business Process

See the Release Notes for more details.

Upgrade Now

Existing users can check their e-mail and use the provided link to access our Download Products page. After signing in, follow the prompts to download the latest version. You can find additional information in the Upgrading section of the documentation.

New users can request a free trial. You’ll receive our software, complete product documentation, and free support.

We hope you enjoy the release! Reach out to us with any questions or feedback—we’re always happy to hear from you.

About the Author

Janet Six, Ph.D. is Senior Product Manager at Tom Sawyer Software, where she works with business, technical, and design teams to help create effective data visualization and analysis solutions within technical, time, and financial constraints. She has been in the graph field for almost 30 years. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Discrete Algorithms, Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications, and the Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science. The proceedings of conferences on Graph Drawing, IEEE Information Visualization, and Algorithm Engineering and Experiments have also included the results of her research. Her interests include graph visualization, analysis, and artificial intelligence.