Brickly

A block based editor for SPARQL queries with Brick.

How does it work?

This application is intended to make SPARQL queries on BrickSchema defined buildings easier to query for beginners who are unfamiliar with SPARQL syntax.

Brickly uses Google's Blockly API to create easy-to-use blocks for your querying needs.

There are three types of blocks:

• triple blocks are the heart of querying. They represent a RDF triple which has a subject, predicate, and object. Though the triple block reads top down, each dropdown corresponds left to right as subject -> predicate -> object.
• let blocks allow for variable creation. Given a variableName and a type selected in a dropdown, a line of the form will be created upon querying: ?variableName rdf:type <type> .
• limit blocks limit the resultant amount of data queried.

The prefixes brick, unit, owl, rdf, and rdfs are included by default in Brickly.

Running the app

After cloning, the app can be started using the Dockerfile:

cd brickly
docker build -t brickly .
docker run -dp 5000:5000 --rm -v `pwd`:/opt brickly bldg.ttl

Note that on Windows, %cd% must be used instead of pwd.

docker run -dp 5000:5000 --rm -v %cd%:/opt brickly bldg.ttl

Note that any valid turtle (.ttl) file can be used to query against instead of the example bldg.ttl.

Example Query Creation

An example demo video can be viewed here. Detailed instructions can be found below.

Create three "let" blocks, named "sensor" "device" and "zone" respectively. Sensor should be a https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#Zone_Air_Temperature_Sensor, device should be a https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#VAV and zone should be a https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#HVAC_Zone.

Next, create a new "triple" block.

• Select ?device in the upper dropdown.
• Select https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#hasPoint in the middle dropdown.
• Select ?sensor in the lower dropdown.

Create another "triple" block.

• Select ?device in the upper dropdown.
• Select https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#feeds in the middle dropdown.
• Select ?zone in the lower dropdown.

This should result in the image below.

Click the arrow icon in the top right of the "Run Query" container to run the query against an example building file.

The generated code (as a result of the block query) should look like:

SELECT * WHERE {
    ?sensor rdf:type <https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#Zone_Air_Temperature_Sensor> .
    ?device rdf:type <https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#VAV> .
    ?zone rdf:type <https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#HVAC_Zone> .
    ?device <https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#hasPoint> ?sensor .
    ?device <https://brickschema.org/schema/Brick#feeds> ?zone .
}