OWL Ontology Visualization: Graphical Representations of Properties on the Instance Level

Abstract

For several ontology applications, a combination of classes with their instances, their properties on the class level and on the instance level are from interest. However, the focus of most visualization approaches is on the hierarchical and non-hierarchical relationships on the class level. This paper presents an approach to visualizing datatype properties and object properties on the instance level. For this purpose, three different layouts were developed for the ontology visualization tool Knoocks. Furthermore, the paper discusses results of an evaluation that was motivated to identify which one of these layout versions was preferred by the users. The evaluation should also reveal if the concept of the representation of the properties was understandable for them.