OntoTrek: 3D visualization of application ontology class hierarchies

An application ontology often reuses terms from other related, compatible ontologies. The extent of this interconnectedness is not readily apparent when browsing through larger textual presentations of term class hierarchies, be it Manchester text format OWL files or within an ontology editor like Protege. Users must either note ontology sources in term identifiers, or look at ontology import file term origins. Diagrammatically, this same information may be easier to perceive in 2 dimensional network or hierarchical graphs that visually code ontology term origins. However, humans, having stereoscopic vision and navigational acuity around colored and textured shapes, should benefit even more from a coherent 3-dimensional interactive visualization of ontology that takes advantage of perspective to offer both foreground focus on content and a stable background context. We present OntoTrek, a 3D ontology visualizer that enables ontology stakeholders—students, software developers, curation teams, and funders—to recognize the presence of imported terms and their domains, ultimately illustrating how projects can capture knowledge through a vocabulary of interwoven community-supported ontology resources.