Can we get rid of Metadata Element Nodes?
To associate colors with faces and edges, Analysis Situs provides Metadata Element Nodes.
The initial idea was to have explicit bindings for all subshapes that could easily be traced. However, this approach has some drawbacks:
- It's verbose. Metadata Element Nodes expand in the Data browser into a long list having no value to users. This potentially could be fixed by just hiding them.
- This is worse: allocating and cleaning up Metadata Element Nodes comes with its own price. First, memory leak in OCAF as "ghost" TDF Labels would not go away after removal of Nodes (that's by design of OCAF). As a result, memory consumption will grow over time. Second, the performance of OCAF manipulations is known to be slow.
It is proposed to use just a single Metadata Node containing all information required for coloring subshapes. Such an approach is better suited for long runs and batch testing.
Edited by Quaoar