Visualizing ontologies on the web

Abstract

The proposed paper introduces an ontology visualization model suitable for average web users. It is capable of retaining ontology expressiveness while at the same time hiding the formal terminology that is usually employed in the context of ontology development. According to the proposed ontology visualization model, classes are represented as boxes and their corresponding properties are represented as labeled lines connecting such boxes. By hoping from one box to another, users are able to interactively explore the underlying ontology. Such interaction is facilitated through an intuitive, web-based GUI implemented in Javascript, which communicates with the underlying ontology through a middleware component implemented in Python. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.