Linked Data Visualization Platforms; Different Approaches

Hi,

I was trying to hold back... but isolation is killing me. I guess we
are social in nature.
Some of you know I spent quite some time working on a visualization
platform. Part of it was built on a Java / processing hybrid and
surfaced through a thin ( flash ) client using some pretty complex
streaming tricks ( think VNC ).
It looks nothing like the UIs you are working on, although
conceptually we went down similar paths.
Since we stood on a much more solid platform, with infinite tools at
hand and infinite local *processing ;)* power, it was easier to
experiment ( we didn't rely on the client, Ajax, etc ) and we moved
forward faster.

You can say I cheated ;)

Now, with the advent of Flash/Flex/AIR and the other RIA platforms (
Silverlight, JavaFX and maybe even Gears ), similar power will
eventually be available on the client side.

( forget about having powerful and modular Javascript for a while,
things are not looking nice[1] )

I guess my point is: consider breaking FREE OF THE RULES and use all
the tools to experiment ( even if they break some standards, you can
then come back ). There are infinite paradigms to experiment with.

Some pointers:
A very nice vis newcomer in Flex: SpatialKey [2]
My incipient RDF framework for the Flash platform [3]

I am not saying you don't know that there are other ways to do this.
Just that you should reconsider the benefits of using a better
framework... even if it is only for research. Back to the Haystack
days perhaps.
Imagine how fast faceted browsing can be with a co-located triple
store feeding a specially crafted federated querying engine.

Processing on the edge.

Best,
A

[1] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/es-discuss/2008-August/003400.html
[2] http://www.spatialkey.com/
[3] http://www.semanticflash.org/

-- 
:::: Aldo Bucchi ::::
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Received on Wednesday, 20 August 2008 10:27:35 UTC