AniGraph is a combination of a Model View Controller (MVC) framework and a scene graph designed to make it easy for users to build, compose, and control customizable and procedural graphics for the web. It is written in TypeScript using ThreeJS and a bit of React. AniGraph applications can be built into static websites that are easy to deploy, making it especially useful for building quick shareable demos.
Before we jump into AniGraph, let's go over some background information.
Model-View-Controller, or MVC, is often referred to as a "software architectural design pattern," which just means that it's a common way to design software... Most graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are built on some variation of MVC---so, if you are a comupter scientist in training and this is the first time you've heard the term, there is a good chance it won't be the last. While specific MVC patterns may vary from system to system, what they share is the basic philosophy that an application's core data (Model) should be separated from the code that is used to display (View) and interact with that data (Controller). This separation may already be familiar and expected in some cases; for example, one expects to see the same basic content when checking email in a phone application that they would see in a browser, even if the application has a different look and offers different controls.
AniGraph uses a variant of MVC idea is to separate software into three types of components: Models, which contain all of the software's basic data; Views which govern how that data is presented to the user; and Controllers which facilitate communication between models and views. AniGraph provides classes for building models, views, and controllers, which we'll be extending for this assignment.
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