Shining light on complex rdf data through advanced data visualization

Abstract

This Demonstration paper discusses ongoing work at Tom Sawyer Software in the area of advanced visualization and analysis of very large data sets, including RDF data. There is a growing imperative to explore large data sets as part of opportunity and threat analysis in areas such as national defense, financial risk analysis, market intelligence, and disease epidemiology. An increasing volume of this type of information is represented as RDF graphs. By visualizing and visually analyzing data, it is possible to see patterns, trends, and outliers in complex RDF graphs that would otherwise be difficult or even impossible to discover. Since RDF graphs are by nature difficult for humans to read, Tom Sawyer Software has been developing an innovative, graphical approach to defining the schema of RDF data, visualizing salient parts of the RDF graph, and integrating social network analysis into the visualization process to provide intuitive visual navigation, query, and understanding of information. This Demonstration paper discusses the underlying technology and its realization in sophisticated software for building advanced data visualization and analysis applications for making sense of large RDF graphs. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.