Graph-based visual analytics tools for digital humanities research

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the development of the Web application for the visual analytics of the interconnected data within digital humanities research highly adaptable to the specifics of application domain and personal analytics preferences. The circular graph is proposed as a visual model to depict the interconnected data in a comprehensive way. The graph rendering software is organized according to the model-driven architecture utilizing ontology engineering methods and means, which ensure configuration flexibility and modification ease. The functioning scenarios of the application's visualization component can be changed without its source code modifications, just by editing the underlying ontology that describes data processing and rendering mechanisms. Extraction, transformation, loading and rendering of the data are configured in the intuitive way by data flow diagrams with the help of a high-level graphical editor. The described features are demonstrated on the real-world examples from the digital humanities application domain.