Graphic and Multimedia Tools

The processing of data requires graphic tools for visualization. This chapter presents the HTML5 tools that JavaScript can use either for direct drawing or multimedia display. There are three approaches, corresponding to the three following elements: iframe, scalable vector graphics (SVG) and canvas. SVG is a markup language, like HTML, and can be run with a specific layout engine. The element <canvas> provides a rectangular surface on the web page, which can be associated with a “graphic context”, and JavaScript can have access to the properties and methods of that graphic context. The open source library Dygraph is available under “MIT license”. Handling the real time elapsed is useful when waiting for an answer or monitoring an evolution. The window object proposes two methods which allow the execution of a function at a specific time or by specific intervals: setTimeout and setInterval.