SemaTime - Timeline Visualization of Time-Dependent Relations and Semantics

Timeline based visualizations arrange time-dependent entities along a time-axis and are used in many different domains like digital libraries, criminal investigation and medical information systems to support users in understanding chronological structures. By the use of semantic technologies, the information is categorized in a domain-specific, hierarchical schema and specified by semantic relations. Commonly semantic relations in timeline visualizations are depicted by interconnecting entities with a directed edge. However it is possible that semantic relations change in the course of time. In this paper we introduce a new timeline visualization for time-dependent semantics called SemaTime that offers a hierarchical categorization of time-dependent entities including navigation and filtering features. We also present a novel concept for visualizing time-dependent relations that allows the illustration of time-varying semantic relations and affords an easy understandable visualization of complex, time-dependent interrelations.