LODWheel - JavaScript-based Visualization of RDF Data

Visualizing Resource Description Framework (RDF) data to support decision-making processes is an important and challenging aspect of consuming Linked Data. With the recent development of JavaScript libraries for data visualization, new opportunities for Web-based visualization of Linked Data arise. This paper presents an extensive evaluation of JavaScript-based libraries for visualizing RDF data. A set of criteria has been devised for the evaluation and 15 major JavaScript libraries have been analyzed against the criteria. The two JavaScript libraries with the highest score in the evaluation acted as the basis for developing LODWheel (Linked Open Data Wheel) – a prototype for visualizing Linked Open Data in graphs and charts – introduced in this paper. This way of visualizing RDF data leads to a great deal of challenges related to data-categorization and connecting data resources together in new ways, which are discussed in this paper.