Integrating visual analysis with ontological knowledge structure

Most existing visual analytical tools that incorporate knowledge are tailored for specific analytical tasks. Although these tools are useful and powerful, it is often difficult to generalize the approaches utilized in these tools for knowledge incorporation to new problems or domains. In this paper, we propose a method for integrating a visual analytical tool with an ontological knowledge structure such that concepts can be dynamically created or modified through the ontology while the overall system retains the exploratory capabilities of the visual tools. In order to understand how such integration is possible, we first examine the roles of the visualization and the ontology. The relationship between the two then depict a generalizable model that describes the types of communication that are useful and practical between the visualization, the ontology, and the user.