Visualisation of RDF(S)-based Information

As Resource Description Framework (RDF) reaches maturity, there is an increasing need for tools that support it. A common and natural representation for RDF data is a directed labeled graph. Although there are tools to edit and/or browse RDF graph representations, we found their architecture rigid and not easily amenable to producing effective visual representations, especially for large RDF graphs. We discuss here how GViz, a general purpose graph visualisation tool, allows the easy construction and fine-tuning of various visual exploratory scenarios for RDF data. GViz’s extended ability of customizing the visualisation’s icons showed to be very useful in the context of RDF graph structures visualisation. Among the presented applications, we mention customizable selections, schemainstance comparison, instances comparison, and schemas comparison (schema evolution). GViz proved to be able not only to visualize large RDF data models, but also to be very flexible in designing scenario-specific queries to support the exploration process.