Filter (Dials | ...)

Abstract

An increasing number of data providing organizations publish their unique information as Linked data which is available in the Semantic Web in RDF (Resource Distribution Framework) format. RDF is a standard model describing web information that is understandable to computer applications. For users without much technical knowledge, information visualization provides support to interpret the structure of underlying data in the web, understand their relationships, form queries and extract more interesting information. This thesis proposes a visual query technique focusing on the visualization of overall availability of data. The prototype visualization tool developed shows the available groups of data items and their size according to different filtering options. The thesis report starts with a clear description of the research problem and an analysis of the efforts made so far in the field for finding a solution. A survey of the the related work is presented to find the potential for the visualization. The Filter Dials, a novel visualization concept serves as the base work and a starting point and that the evolved new technique attempts to overcome some of the notable drawbacks of the Dials. The thesis also proposes a new visual query technique that aims to achieve the goal of visually presenting an overview of large and complex data available in the web. A prototypical implementation of the visualization tool is done and evaluated by users and conclusions are drawn with the applications, advantages, disadvantages and the possible future directions in the proposed method.