About

Scientific Visualization & Simulation in Java with MDI

Building Interactive, Extensible Desktop Applications for Research and Education

David Heddle · Apress · expected Q1 2027
ISBN 979-8-8688-3049-5 · Shelved in Programming Techniques · Intermediate level

Build interactive scientific simulations and visualizations in Java using MDI (Multi-Document Interface). This guide saves you from piecing together disconnected UI recipes, offering a consolidated approach in which visualization, simulation, interaction, and extensibility fit together within a coherent design.

The book builds a complete Java desktop, structured around a series of demo applications that grow in complexity. Early chapters introduce core MDI concepts — views, containers, layers, interactive items, and toolbars. From there, it covers simulation engines, scientific plotting (including histograms and curve fitting), multi-view coordination, and performance topics. A final capstone shows how to use MDI to build a full machine-learning desktop application with an ONNX-based classification model.

What You'll Learn

Design maintainable, extensible Java desktop architecture for scientific and technical applications
Build interactive visualizations that coordinate multiple views and shared data
Integrate simulations, background computation, and UI responsiveness safely
Implement scientific plotting, curve fitting, and histogram-based visualizations
Extend a visualization framework for custom research or educational projects
Build interactive maps with multiple projections, geographic data, terrain, and custom map items

Pre-order details will be linked here once available from Apress.

The Author

David Heddle — github.com/heddle.

David Heddle is a Professor of Physics at Christopher Newport University, in a joint position with Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. MDI grew out of years of building scientific and engineering software with a heavy visualization component — missile defense simulations, network security and network visualization, nuclear physics event displays, charged-particle “swimming” through nonuniform magnetic fields, and computational grid intersections.

This Site

The companion site is itself an open, static site — no build step, no framework, just HTML and CSS served by GitHub Pages. Its source lives at github.com/heddle/mdi-companion.