A web-based application to support the interaction of spatial and semantic representation of knowledge

Abstract. The visualization of semantic information provides new ways for knowledge acquisition and access, since it enables users to explore and understand the meaning of information, as well as to identify associations among data and connections to existing knowledge. Maps on the other hand are extensively used as symbolic representations of spatial reality. Lately, researchers have delved deeper into formalizing the connection between the map and the semantics it conveys using knowledge-based formalisms such as knowledge graphs, ontologies, and linked data. Semantic visualization techniques may also enrich maps with the knowledge immanent therein and support knowledge visualization and exploration.

The present paper describes the development of a web-based prototypical application that contains a spatial and a semantic component that interact. In addition to the representation of geospatial entities as cartographic features, the graph-based representation of semantic information is also implemented, to enable users to explore and understand the meaning and semantic relations between concepts and entities that appear on the map.