This is a repository for the CircTreeGen shiny app (https://jlnetosci.shinyapps.io/CircTreeGen/).
While free printable templates for circular family trees/fan charts are available throughout the web, their formatting is extremely stiff. CircTreeGen was created to provide flexibility when generating these printable templates.
This simple app generates a circular family tree with some customizable options:
- Number of generations: from 2 to a maximum of 12 (v0.1.1).
- Display type: full, half, or quarter circle.
- Export size: a 100×100 cm square, standard sizes A4 (29.7×21 cm) or Letter (27.9×21.6 cm) in landscape.
- Export format: PDF or SVG.
A maximum number of 12 generations was selected to provide a wide range while keeping a sane limit.
Half and quarter circle displays were added to offer a deliberate way of printing partial circles in multiple pages:
Printing a half circle in each sheet (and joining them, as displayed above) will roughly double the radius, increasing the writable area. Printing a quarter circle in each sheet will roughly quadruple the radius, greatly increasing the writable area available (this is useful when printing a large number of generations).
Standard (A4 and Letter) sheet sizes are available.
Additionally there is an option to export a the circular tree in a larger (100×100 cm) square. If this size is downloaded, default printing preferences should automatically resize them to the sheet size available. The user might select other printing preferences e.g. Adobe Acrobat Reader will provide an option to print "as poster" dividing the file in an appropriate number of sections/sheets as seen below:
This export size gives the user the possibility of printing the template as a full-size high resolution poster, that might be useful when selecting a large number of generations.
(Note: While I have printed other large size posters before - and therefore assume this would be no different - I have not yet tried it with these templates, in case you have please let me know)
Templates can be saved as easily printable .pdf documents or .svg files which are modifiable using editing software (e.g. Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape).
A local instance of this app can be run using Docker (download, installation).
Usage example:
- Pull the image from dockerhub, with
docker pull jlnetosci/circtreegen:v0.1.1. - Run
docker run -p 3838:3838 jlnetosci/circtreegen:v0.1.1to start the application. - Open
http://localhost:3838/in your browser.
The fully functional app should be available in your local machine.