Abstract
This paper presents a Java-based hyperbolic-style browser designed to render RDF files as structured onto-logical maps. The program was motivated by the need to browse the content of a web-accessible ontology server: WEBKB-2. The ontology server contains descriptions of over 74,500 object types derived from the WORDNET 1.7 lexical database and can be accessed using RDF syntax. Such a structure creates complications for hyperbolic-style displays. In WEBKB-2 there are 140 stable ontology link types and a hyperbolic display needs to filter and iconify the view so different link relations can be distinguished in multi-link views. Our browsing tool, ONTORAMA, is therefore motivated by two possibly interfering aims: the first to display up to 10 times the number of nodes in a hyperbolic-style view than using a conventional graphics display; secondly, to render the ontology with multiple links comprehensible in that view.