MappetShow: non-linear visualization for genome data.

The genome mapping projects now produce very dense maps with up to several thousands of markers per chromosome. Besides synteny plays a increasing role in mapping: enrichment of poor maps from the maps of close genomes (in terms of evolution) is a high-reward task. We propose a map viewer adapted to this situation: MappetShow gives a clear view of very dense maps and compares efficiently several maps. MappetShow is based on non-linear viewing and is written in Java. A map description language isolates the software from the data sources. This software was easily used on data coming from as different sources as an Object Request Broker, an Object-Oriented Database, or a flat data stream. MappetShow can be browsed at the URL http:¿www.infobiogen.fr/services/Mappet. More generally we discuss how to use the non-linear viewing concept in molecular biology data visualization.