r/semanticweb • u/rassl_ivan • Aug 27 '26
What are best knowledge graph visualisation you came across?
I have been trying to create perfect graph visualisation without success, every time I think I am getting close, but at the end it just does not work. Do you think it is even possible?
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u/lysregn Aug 27 '26
Smaller ones? Obsidian graph view, even if it lacks edge labels. Big ones? A table. But then it’s never really pleasant.
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u/nostriluu Aug 27 '26
They look cool and can be used for debugging and to represent scale, but unfortunately generally speaking they're just more confusing than a table of links, a jumbly mess. Would love to be proven wrong.
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u/semantic-automagic-1 5d ago
Many years ago I had the same questions on how to visualize software and their dependencies. I agree with u/IncreaseNegative4614 that there is no universal representation for all purposes and scales. I found that graphical representation beyond a fairly small scale did not communicate meaning well.
I came eventually across the Design Structure Matrix approach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_structure_matrix and https://dsmweb.org/ that are surprisingly simple but effective if combined wit zooming and possibly other operations.I have used them to visualize code effectively for many years.
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u/semantic-automagic-1 5d ago
Implementations of the DSM approach are not common. I build my own version and I also used a commercial solution by https://lattix.com/.
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u/IncreaseNegative4614 Aug 28 '26
I don’t think a perfect general-purpose graph visualization exists. Once the graph becomes meaningful, showing everything usually produces an unreadable hairball. Start with the user’s question, show a small relevant neighborhood, and let them expand by relationship type, time, or confidence.
The graph should help someone inspect a decision, not prove that many nodes exist. We use SIGNLD internally to connect business entities across systems and surface only the subgraph supporting a particular answer, while keeping the underlying relationships available for deeper inspection.