We have designed Thinkmap to be easily extendable, fast, and able to integrate with a wide variety of legacy systems. Thinkmap is composed of a number of loosely coupled components that can be quickly reconfigured to fulfill many different visualization tasks. These components are lightweight, flexible, and standards-based.

The unique features of Thinkmap start with a sophisticated core. The core enables the dynamic, asynchronous flow of data that is Thinkmap's hallmark. Careful abstractions expose this power, but hide the complexity. The functionality is delivered as a set of plugins, listeners, filters, and maps, which can be built upon to implement a variety of features. The Core API is used to create and configure the following visualizations:

The data access layer of Thinkmap is known as the Datasource API. It separates the user interface layer from any particular back-end. Any Thinkmap datasource can be streamed over a network, and Thinkmap can access multiple sources at once, without changes to the application code. Available to Professional and Enterprise customers, the Datasource API is standards-based and flexible, and allows developers to create custom adapters to a variety of back-end systems. In addition, we provide all customers with plug-and-play connectors to relational databases and XML.

Enables rapid development of Java client-side GUI components that work alongside Thinkmap. The components included in GEL include: sliders, scrollbars, lists, buttons, pop-up menus, and tool tips.

Enables the publication of Thinkmap Java applets. Condensity strips away components that are not being used, achieving optimal size and efficiency in deployed code.

Thinkmap Applications that are accessed over the Internet can easily be deployed as J2EE Web Application Archive ("WAR") files. This means that Thinkmap can be deployed on any standard J2EE Servlet container.