Juniper is a JavaFX-based Plotting Framework for Effective Multi-Dimensional 3D Scatterplots.
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Clone this repository with git:
$ git clone https://github.com/pphilippos/juniper -
Install Oracle JDK or OpenJDK, and Apache Maven. These are also usually available in common software repositories.
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Run the following in a Linux, Windows or Mac terminal within the juniper directory:
$ mvn javafx:run -
Use the GUI to generate plots. A sample dataset is provided and can be loaded directly ("TOP500_202406_co.csv" from top500.org, explained in the paper).
See the MANUAL.md for more details on its functionality.
Use the following workarounds for common issues:
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If there is an environment issue relating to the platform, it needs to be specified accordingly (win, mac, or linux), e.g. run with:
$ mvn javafx:run -Djavafx.platform=linux. -
If Maven complains that "release version 21 is not supported", then this is an indication that you have installed the Java Runtime Environment (JRK), instead of the JDK. For example, in a fresh Ubuntu release (tested with 24.04 LTS, 25.04) machine, only the following is required to be able to run all aforementioned commands:
$ sudo apt install git openjdk-21-jdk maven. -
Similar messages such as "Unsupported class file major version 65" may indicate that you have an older version of JDK set as default. For example, on Arch/Manjaro Linux use
$ archlinux-java statusto see the installed Java versions, and select an appropriate one (version >= 21), e.g. with$ sudo archlinux-java set java-23-openjdk.
Most of the development is done is inside two Java files: Juniper.java and Controls.java.
The source of Juniper can be edited using any editor, but the recommended IDE is Apache NetBeans. This directory contains the required files to be able to be opened as a NetBeans project. NetBeans IDE has originally been used to generate the GUI-related code within Controls.java. That part of the code is automatically locked (grayed-out) within NetBeans, to be able to maintain the interface from NetBean's GUI builder (Form Editor).
The generated API documentation (Javadocs) can be opened with target/reports/apidocs/index.html using a browser after having the repository locally. Note that due to the GUI elements and FXyz file structure, it may be more straightforward to also see the inline comments in the code for detailed implementation insights.
This software is introduced by the publication "Juniper: a 3D plotting framework for effective multi-dimensional scatterplots", Philippos Papaphilippou. It has been accepted at SoftwareX by Elsevier in May 2025.
Copyright (C) 2025 Philippos Papaphilippou
The project's source code is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License 3.0 (see LICENSE).