[OLPC-GSoC] Mesh Network Visualization Proposal

[Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos]

Hi Emil,

This sounds great. For a moment I thought you were aiming for something 
that would run on the XO and children would be able to use to pinpoint 
the location of their friends on the globe. This too sounds like a neat 
idea.

Still, having a tool for visualizing the location of XOs in different 
scales for research and network analysis is also very important. I would 
also recommend trying to keep data representation as modular and open as 
possible so that it can be fed to different tools for analysis (imagine 
clicking on your tool and getting a wireshark snapshot from the node, or 
what the mesh network layout looks like from their perspective, their's 
is not necessarily symmetric to yours).

Finally, how do you plan to layout nodes in small scale, like in 
village- or neighborhood-scale? What information would you assume that 
is available to you to do the layout?

Pol


Emil Rossal wrote:
> * You mention the application has little to do with mesh networking, 
> being geared at a global scale : this is unclear to me. Marble has an 
> adjustable viewing range capable to support block/village scale levels 
> - similar to Google Earth's capabilities. I fail to see why Marble 
> shouldn't be able to handle these scales, provided that some mapping 
> imagery is available.
>
> * Though not explicitly stated in the initial application, the 
> incompatibility with 'Sugar' has been considered. Since the suggested 
> tool's main goal is mesh network analysis & research, XO users will 
> probable only be providing simulation data rather than actually 
> running the tool. Non the less this won't be an issue once XO has 
> widget support.
>

-- 
Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos
Graduate student
Viral Communications
MIT Media Lab
Tel: +1 (617) 459-6058
http://www.mit.edu/~ypod/