Recently searching for a 'technical article' I stumbled upon this Microsoft page: http://academic.research.microsoft.com/. I found the paper I was looking for but was amazed by its VisualExplorer feature.
Have a look at this page: http://academic.research.microsoft.com/VisualExplorer#2037349.
The above page uses SilverLight
and will recommend you to use IE.
Like a curious human being I am now thinking of possible ways to implement it. A part of it seems easy:
I know (or rather feel) this could be easily done in Flash, javascript or silverlight. But is there a way to do this using Java 2D/3D or OpenGL bindings?
Any or every thoughts are welcome.
One option would be Zest. It supports interaction and animations. Check out some snippets and stuff.