java写词云,实现像Wordle这样的词云的算法

Context

Take a look at Wordle: http://www.wordle.net/

It's much better looking than any other word cloud generators I've seen

Note: the source is not available - read the FAQ: http://www.wordle.net/faq#code

My Questions

Is there an algorithm available that does what Wordle does?

If no, what are some alternatives that produces similar kinds of output?

Why I'm asking

just curious

want to learn

解决方案

I'm the creator of Wordle. Here's how Wordle actually works:

Count the words, throw away boring words, and sort by the count, descending. Keep the top N words for some N. Assign each word a font size proportional to its count. Generate a Java2D Shape for each word, using the Java2D API.

Each word "wants" to be somewhere, such as "at some random x position in the vertical center". In decreasing order of frequency, do this for each word:

place the word where it wants to be

while it intersects any of the previously placed words

move it one step along an ever-increasing spiral

That's it. The hard part is in doing the intersection-testing efficiently, for which I use last-hit caching, hierarchical bounding boxes, and a quadtree spatial index (all of which are things you can learn more about with some diligent googling).

Edit: As Reto Aebersold pointed out, there's now a book chapter, freely available, that covers this same territory: Beautiful Visualization, Chapter 3: Wordle