[Visinfo] animation algorithm questions?

[Mike Godwin]

Hey all,

Figured I'd throw out some of the questions I've been having with my
work, and see if anyone might have answers.  Mostly techie Java
programming questions, so let me know if this isn't the forum.  But I
figured we're all going to start struggling with these questions to some
degree and maybe there is some collective wisdom out there...

1) Java programming questions. I have an animation and I'm a little
unclear about optimum organization of the code -- ie when should one use
an array or ArrayList or Vector class? What is the syntax for referring
to 2dimensional Vector type arrays? Also I would like input into general
object/Class organization - the animated critter is an object, but are
each of his legs as well?  This will make more sense with a diagram, but
any input would be helpful.  I'd love a 5 minute chat with a CS inclined
individual who might be able to look over some sketches and offer coding
structure input.

2) preprocessing / data input.  I'll be doing my apple visualizations in
processsing, and the files I have are all .dbf.  In general I'm trying
to figure out how much I should preprocess the data to make it lovely
for my visualization program.  Seems like a trade-off between
extendability (that is if there is a lot of preprocess it'll be harder
for me to pull down other datasets and feed them right into the
visualization program) and ease of coding.  Basically, do I massage my
49 .dbf files into a .csv that would be relatively easy to parse in
processing or do battle with the dbf java libraries and thereby automate
the massaging in the visualization program. hmm. My new tactic is do
whatever = visualization fastest then clean up later, but input on this
topic would be helpful as well.

cheers, mike