RE: visual OWL #invaluable

Of course I am somewhat biased, but I developed the first visual representation of OWL (VisioOWL) (1) as a follow on to my development of VisioDAML (2). The DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) was the precursor to OWL. As the project manager for the DAML integration effort I had a difficult time explaining the concept of an ontology to potential user communities. I would attempt to use examples using the XML syntax to get the point across but that often didn’t work well. So I developed VisioDAML as a way to visually explain both the overall concept of ontologies and also to demonstrate specific domain ontologies to domain experts. When DAML morphed into OWL I modified VisioDAML into VisioOWL and it continued to help many understand the idea of ontologies. I also found that using VisioOWL to graphically represent a specific OWL ontology resulted in the discovery of errors in the original XML syntax. Mistakes that were hard to recognize in the XML syntax became obvious in the VisioOWL representation. I don’t have anything negative to say about VOWL. However, I do think VisioOWL is still the most faithful graphical representation of the XML syntax for an ontology and if development of features for VisioOWL had been continued past 2003, when I retired,  it would be a better overall visual representation approach.

 

John Flynn

 

1. https://sites.google.com/site/semanticsimulations2/visioowl 
2. http://www.daml.org/visiodaml/ 

 

From: Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio@gmail.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2020 1:25 AM
To: SW-forum <semantic-web@w3.org>
Subject: Fwd: visual OWL #invaluable

 

Greetings

I know, this list is now mostly used for announcements and rants but, was this beautiful

visual OWL suite of apps, especially the web app announced here? 

 

http://vowl.visualdataweb.org/

 

If so,  I may have missed it

 

Just found it, and very nice (and easy on the brain) to visualize OWL via the browser

Looks like the last release date is nov 19, which is very recent 

 

Thank you!

 

just discovered visual OWL!!

ontologies are easier to visualize for humans if there are visuals

 

I especially like the web app which does not require any download

 

http://vowl.visualdataweb.org/

 

(still trying to figure out how to import an owl file) 

 

Looks like very nice work 

 

#invaluable