DB2 graphic  QMF Version 8

Creating levels of detail

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

Good design means just enough information just when it is needed. You can design layouts to display financial highlights, summary values, company logos, or other high-level information at first glance. You can then add levels of detail that offer more information as the user zooms in to reveal that information.

You can create levels of detail in:

After you create a level of detail, consider some of the properties you might want to modify, including:

See the reference section of the QMF Visionary Studio online help for details about object properties and functions available. The QMF Visionary Tutorial has an example of creating a level of detail.

Creating levels of detail in a data template

You can create levels of detail in a data template for 2-D layouts only; you cannot create a level of detail for a 3-D layout.

By adding a level of detail to a data template, you can reveal additional or different data in a scene as the end user zooms in. The following figure illustrates the concept of levels of detail.

Figure 23. Data template levels of detail

For example, you might want an organization chart to show only titles when the scene is viewed at 100% (the default zoom level). However, when the end user zooms in to 200%, you might want to reveal names, phone numbers, and even photos of the employees.

Here is an example of two levels of detail in an organization chart. The following figure shows the first level.

Figure 24. Organization chart, level 1

When the user clicks the zoom tool and then clicks the scene, QMF Visionary zooms in to 200% magnification and reveals the second level of detail.

Figure 25. Organization chart, level 2

To create a second level of detail in a data template, right-click the data template in the Data Template editor and click Insert level of detail. You can then edit the objects to display more data. In this example, the Value property of the label has two additional columns in the second level of detail: firstname and department.

Note: When you compose queries for layouts, include as many columns as you think might be valuable to end users. You can display only the most important or highest-level column information in the default level of detail, and then add a level of detail to reveal more column information.

Creating levels of detail in a scene

Levels of detail in a scene allow end users to see more or different information by zooming in on the scene. When you create a level of detail, you can specify the transition point (zoom level) at which a user shifts from one set of detail to another, and you specify what objects make up the level of detail.

You might want to create a scene level of detail if you cannot provide the detail you want using the same query that is mapped to the layout. In this case, you might create a second level of detail in the scene and include all the same objects as the first level of detail, but with a different query used for the layout.

In another situation, you might create a completely different layout in a second level of detail. For example, when the user zooms in to the finest detail on a particular data point, you might want to change the entire scene to display a single Web page that shows information about a company.

To create a level of detail for a scene, right-click the scene in the World Manager and click Insert --> Level of Detail. You can select to initiate the second level of detail with the objects from the first, or you can add a new layout to the second level of detail.

Note: Create viewpoints to direct user attention to a particular level of detail. Using a jump to a viewpoint, you can allow end users to go directly to the area in the scene and the level of the detail that contains desired information.


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Copyright IBM Corporation 1982,2004 Copyright IBM Corporation 1982, 2004
timestamp Last updated: March, 2004