This is the app for the Sphaera project database.
It contains templates and configurations for the metaphacts platform for building a declarative knowledge graph application, which enables end-users to capture, curate, trace and visualise knowledge in the history around a specific text: the Tractatus De sphaera by Johannes de Sacrobosco.
The Sphaera project based at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and is led by Matteo Valleriani. Florian Kräutli leads the digital development and is responsible for the design of the app.
The app and project was initially developed in 2017. This version of the app has been migrated in April 2020 by metaphacts to be compatible with newer versions (>= 3.2) for public usage and demonstration purpose.
The Sphaera database is based on open standards and Semantic Web technologies:
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The data model is based on the formal ontology CIDOC-CRM and the FRBRoo extension for bibliographic records. This ensures that the data is compatible to other sources and remains usable in the foreseeable future. Please note that the Erlangen OWL implementation of CIDOC-CRM was used and extened by FRBRoo.
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Person and place records we include links to Wikidata, making the dataset part of the growing web of Linked Data. Wikidata provides links to other authority records such as VIAF and allows to add new persons or other entities that we discover in our records.
The Sphaera app makes use of the following platform components:
- authoring forms including field definitions over complex CIDOC CRM and FRBRoo pattern
- different visualization components (semantic maps, lists, carousels, graphs)
- IIIF image viewer for deep zoom image viewing and annotations (e.g. of scanned book pages)
- components for knowledge graph administration
The following instructions can be utilized to setup your own instance of Sphaera:
- Checkout this project and create a zip of the sphaera folder
git clone https://github.com/metaphacts/sphaera-app.gitcd sphaera-app/ && zip -r sphaera.zip sphaera - Install the platform version 3.2 or newer (c.f. public help or help in your version/distribution) with Blazegraph as database. Please assign sufficient memory (for example, using
--memory=2g --memory-reservation=2gin the docker run command) to the platform as well as blazegraph container. - Login to the platform as administrator with root permission and got to Admin -> Apps & Storages -> Upload the
sphaera.zipvia drag&drop and restart the platform (c.f. also app deployment help) - Download the existing Sphaera database dump from MPIWG Dataverse as NQuads (.nq). Load the file in through the platform Data Import&Export interface using the "Perserve Contexts" in the "Advanced Options" tab.
- Decoupled app from infrastructure scripts
- Migrated the app structure to platform version 3.2 and newer
- Tuned/fixed some visualisation queries, for example, on the start page to be more performant and not break blazegraph
- Use the wikidata hyprid lookup from metaphacts for lookups / autosuggestion pattern in person fields (old wdqas hosting with blazegraph text index has been retired).