Concept
The NMVW database is quite complex in nature. It relational basis is structured in triples, which means that an item has a relation with a subject, a predicate and an object. I want to visualise the complexity of this database to create a better understanding of its complex structure for both new and well-trained users.
As previously mentioned the database structure is quite complex. Therefore, creating the right sparql query can be difficult, because the underlying levels are both abstract and complex. Visualising this can help to create a better understanding of the database for new users.
The database has been released recently by NVMW. The NVMW has acknowledged that there are still some bugs that need to be squashed. A visualisation might help to detect bugs and/or create a better understanding of its nature.
A RDF Structure visualisation from source.
A network diagram seems to be the best candidate to visualise this data structure. A network diagram is used to show how objects are connected to each other. An object is presented as a node. The node can be connected with multiple other nodes and can be grouped together to form dedicated clusters.
- Click own a node will only show all connections to that node.
- Hover on node shows tooltip with details and link.
- Click on a parent node shows leafs (blue nodes)
- Search uri via search box updates the diagram and shows the relations of the uri within the database.
Due to only be able to fetch the categories instead of having both categories and items, I won't be able to show these items. The network diagram will appear to be more of a tree diagram, but when including these items this will not be the case. Just because I only have the categorical data now doesn't mean that it is therefore the wrong visualisation type to use. The goal of this visualisation is to present as much of the database as I possibly can and because the database is a network at heart, a network diagram should be used.