Scriptographer.org - Importing data, freeform char...

This seems superbly plausible, but after a week of learning a bit about illustrator and ESTK CS4, it's also looking like a very big job. I'm presently lost in the Adobe JS scripting guide and reference

What I want to do is create a set of rules to generate circles of a given diameter provided by spreadsheet (or csv, whatever proper format I'd need to generate for the external data), and organize these circles with connecting lines of a parent-child nature. The areas of child circles will represent the distribution of parent circle areas.

I have already completed the computations to generate the various diameters, based on an area-relative equation for the data.

I have not given much thought to the graphical look, anticipating I'd make adjustments to the script once it could import and model the data first. This first bit is the more significant challenge.

For a visual, this is not a huge departure from the US budget visualization by J. Bachman. He assembled that vis using over 800 layers in photoshop. There must be a more streamlined way to do this style vis in illustrator.

Thanks ahead of time for the general way forward.

Someone asked about exporting / importing data just recently: http://scriptographer.org/forum/help/save-array-data-to-external-file/

I would advise using JSON as a format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON

Check http://scriptographer.org/tutorials/paths/working-with-path-items/ to find out how to make circles. I would advise going through the tutorials in general really.

Oh yes, just to make sure you understand: the Scriptographer api is different from (and superior to) the Illustrator javascript api. Check the reference: http://scriptographer.org/reference/

I have little doubt that Scriptographer is better, except for this nagging issue with the current JRE6 and failure-to-launch of scriptographer. Currently troubleshooting that one with this forum thread.

Once that's settled, then I'll dig into your links. (no luck so far with the java ini or scripting file changes, keep tryin)

Thanks!

I just re-read your last PP in the post. When you say this api is different than ESTK's, does that mean any guides to learn adobe JS using ESTK are not valid, because the various scripts themselves are constructed differently?