Re: Visualization of domain and range

Interesting discussion!

On 25/6/09 14:15, Simon Reinhardt wrote:
> Hi
>
> Bernhard Schandl wrote:
>> [1] <http://www.ifs.univie.ac.at/schandl/2009/06/domain+range_bad.png>
>> [2] <http://www.ifs.univie.ac.at/schandl/2009/06/domain+range_better.png>
>
> I like this. The former has several problems anyway: you have to repeat
> properties if they can hold between several classes [3] and you have to
> draw lines connecting lines for expressing sub-properties or inverse
> properties [4] which looks rather confusing and is not supported by many
> visual modelling tools.

Yeah, my [4] is at my threshold of tolerance for chaos in a diagram. I 
wanted a way to show the core of the FOAF spec in a picture, so tried 
(despite similar concerns to those mentioned in this thread) the style 
of putting domain/range directly in an instance-like style.

In http://www.flickr.com/photos/danbri/1856478164/ ([4]) I try to do too 
many things at once:
  * show the classes that each property is used with
  * show sub-property relationships
  * show sub-class relationships
  * show some typical properties
  * show attachment points for "friends of FOAF" namespaces (DOAP, SIOC, 
DC, Geo etc), with classes and with sample properties

This is a lot of information.

I did try to make a "gradual reveal" slideshow version, building up from 
something simple. It wasn't great. The layout was done by hand to 
minimise crossovers, and looking at it, I think the whole structure 
could be twisted/stretched to be more evenly presented. It was fiddly to 
do though.

A sample of instance-data would probably convey most of the same 
information about domain/range, and would allow subclasses reasonably 
too. Sub-property would remain hard...

If anyone wants to mess around with the FOAF example, source data in 
OmniGraffle format is here and also in SVG: just do "svn co 
http://svn.foaf-project.org/foaf/trunk/xmlns.com/htdocs/foaf/spec/images/"

>			[3] also shows a combination of the two
> problems: if you draw several lines for one property, you have to
> connect sub-properties to each of them or to an arbitrarily selected
> one. The only downside I see here is that adding ellipses for properties
> makes the diagram a bit more bloated.

I don't find [3] very readable. There was another Harmony ABC diagram (I 
think from Carl Lagoze) in 
http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/discovery/harmony/docs/abc/abc_draft.html#Simple%20Rules 
that uses dotted lines for implied types, I think this can work well in 
instance level presentations.

cheers,

Dan

> Regards,
> Simon
>
>
> [3] http://metadata.net/harmony/ABC_Class_Hierarchy_with_Properties.gif
> [4] http://www.flickr.com/photos/danbri/1856478164/ (sorry Dan!)
>
>

Received on Friday, 26 June 2009 06:57:24 UTC