WebFigures is made up of several different components that work together:
Your web application
Client-side code
WebFigureService
Your server's cache
WebFigures use AJAX to simulate MATLAB® figures
in a web browser. When a browser requests a WebFigure, your web application
calls the deployed component for the WebFigure. The component returns
a collection of static images that show the figure in all available
orientations and stores them in the server cache for WebFigureService to
access as needed. WebFiguresService, which is exposed
by WebFigureServlet, delivers the HTML and JavaScript® to
the browser, getting the defaults for a figure, and rendering a figure
in any of its available orientations.
The client-side of your web application puts an HTML reference
to your WebFigure on a page. This can either be done automatically
using the JSP tag or manually by using WebFigureHtmlGenerator.
This gives the client browser what it needs to request the client-side
code.
The client-side AJAX code provides a user experience similar
to that in MATLAB when using a FIGURE.
It provides rotation, zooming, and panning in a highly usable medium
by using a JavaScript application that monitors for user interaction
such as dragging or clicking with a mouse, and calls back into WebFiguresService to
service those requests.
For example, when a user selects the rotate icon and clicks
in the WebFigureTag and drags it, that drag translates
to coordinates and issues a request for the new rotated image from WebFiguresService.
A rotating cube is displayed so the user knows what orientation they
are looking at. Since there is no efficient way to pass an actual
WebFigure from your application to the client-side application and
then back to WebFiguresService, the server's built-in
cache is leveraged as a central repository.