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Introduction
This graph allows you to explore the Dialectics of Modernity data through an interactive visualization which shows the collection of hypotheses, essays, artefacts and related entities as a graph of nodes connected by multiple relationships.
It attempts to present the data from this website in whole (or in part) rather than one or a few elements at a time. This allows thew viewer to see the breadth and complexity of the work.
Using this tool
The graph tool consists of three major components:
- The Control Panel here on the left (or at the top on smaller screens).
- The Toolbar across the top and above the main graph visualization.
- The Main graph where the interactive visualization appears.
Graph Visualization
The main graph shows a collection of nodes, which represent hypotheses, essays, artefacts and entities such as tags, themes, people, places, categories and organizations. Each node is represented by a circle which is from a range of varying sizes and colours (refer to the Legend to see what each shape, size and colour combination represents). A pair of nodes may be connected by a line, which represents a relationship between the two nodes e.g., an artefact is connected to an essay as the artefact is explored in that essay. The same artefact node may also have relationships to other nodes such as tags and themes, or to an person entity.
The main graph is managed by a physics simulation which attempts to move and group the nodes as best it can given the constraints of the relationships between them. This should mean multiple artefacts related to one essay should position closely to each other. Looser relationships (which can span the entire corpus) such as tags and themes will be more erratic and scattered around the graph. The more complex the chosen set of nodes and connections, the more dense and messy the graph becomes.
Use the Mouse Pointer to trigger interactive actions. Hovering the mouse pointer over a node circle will highlight that node and its immediate relations; the highlighted nodes increase in size, whereas the remainder will shrink and be muted in appearance. Pressing the Left Mouse Button (LMB) will select the node, and will remain selected even when the mouse pointer is moved away; it is denoted with an animated red circle. Pressing LMB on the same node again will deselect it; similarly using LMB on a different node will change that to the selected node.
By holding LMB and dragging the mouse pointer, you can move the node around the graph. This updates the physics simulation and the other nodes and connections will respond to this movement. This can be used to re-arrange nodes but the forces that simulation applies may override and undo your actions.
Control Panel
The control panel has a small icon-based menu bar at the top. This comprises several panels that you can view one at a time, by selecting the icon tab. The panels are as follows:
The Selected Node panel
When a node is selected, the selection panel will update with details about that node and further interactive buttons that can be used to explore the node and its relations in more detail. At the top of the panel the node type is shown e.g., Essay. Below that the node ID and Title will be shown e.g., 818: Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, O la borsa o la vita (1933).
To the left of the ID and Title is a small caret symbol which toggles the display of the selected node description (and images if available). When toggled to display the carey symbol will point down .
The next main section shows Connected Nodes, detailing all of the nodes that are connected/related to the selected node, grouped by type/class. Each row consists of the name of the each related node, with several icons and buttons. The first icon shows the current visibility of the related node with denoting visible and denoting hidden. Click the icon to toggle between the two states. Doing so so will add or remove the node from the graph. This can be used per node in the Connected Nodes list. The name/title of the related node is then displayed, and similarly hovering the Mouse Pointer over the title, will highlight the node in the graph (if and only if it is currently visible). The remaining icons let you a) select the node, changing the current selection and updating this panel; b) adding all of its related nodes to the graph and c) creating a new graph centring this particular node.
The Graph Filters panel
Settings: show orphaned nodes will toggle the display of any nodes that are orphaned in the current view due to filters, presets or user interaction. If shown, these nodes will float around.
Node Class Filters: Use the icons to toggle visibility of entire type/classes of nodes. The label shows the class/type name and the number of visible nodes/total nodes.
Link Class Filters: Use the icons to include or exclude these types of links from the view. This is particularly useful when nodes are connected to multiple related objects e.g., tags connect to both the artefact and essay, which can make the graph more dense and complex, and greatly affects the simulation/visualization.
The Style Settings panel
Toggle colours for hypotheses or not. (WIP)
The Force Settings panel
Manipulate the various forces that guide the physical simulation. (WIP)
The Presets panel
Press one of the buttons to select a preset view. These will apply different filters and settings to provide starting points. Default includes most of the nodes but excludes tags and themes. All is everything and you can see that tags and themes make for a very dense and tightly nested graph. Views are available for single artefact types. From any view, the Selected Node and Connected Node panels can be used to add one or multiple nodes as desired.
Toolbar
Reheat and Reset simply trigger the simulation to re-energize and continue jostling nodes into position.
The fullscreen button will toggle between full page graph only (recommended) and the intial embedded view.
