UML-like Class Diagrams

TopBraid Composer can create diagrams from your class definitions in the OWL/RDFS model. Starting with the selected class and its neighbors, the diagram can be expanded step by step. Using a notation similar to UML diagrams, these visualizations can help understand the relationships among classes and properties in the model. Class diagrams can also be exported to HTML documentation.

Classification and Consistency Checking

TopBraid Composer uses OWL Description Logic to run logical consistency checks and to classify classes and instances. The system has the open-source DL reasoners Pellet, Jena and OWLIM built-in, and other classifiers can be accessed via the DIG interface. The results of the classifier are shown in blue on the forms, diagrams and class hierarchies.

Rules

Beside its Description Logics support, TopBraid Composer can also handle traditional rule bases. The system supports rules in either the Jena Rules format or SWRL. Both types of rules are executed with the internal Jena Rules engine to infer additional relationships among resources. Rules can be edited with support of auto-completion and syntax checking. It is also possible to use SPARQL Construct queries as a rule engine.

SPARQL Queries

Composer provides a convenient interface for editing SPARQL queries with auto-completion and syntax checking. Query results are fully clickable to drive the navigation. Queries can be executed either on the plain model or on the model with rules and description logic reasoning switched on, performing logical inferences at query-time. SPARQL queries can be uniformly performed on RDF stores or against federated relational databases.

Geography and Location Mapping

TopBraid Composer can be used to connect RDF resources or ontologies with geospatial ontologies. Geographic coordinates can be visualized and edited on an embedded Google maps interface. Composer can be used to query for resources within a specific region. Geographic queries can be based on SPARQL or inferencing. See also: video.
 

Calendar and Chart Mash-Ups

If ontologies contain time-stamped data, then dates and time spans can be visualized with TopBraid Composer's Calendar features. Other numeric values can be displayed and analyzed on multi-axial Linear Charts.
 

Semantic Web and Mash-Up development with RDFa and GRDDL

RDFa and GRDDL are evolving W3C standards to embed semantic markup in XHTML pages. Composer can parse such documents to extract RDFa metadata from HTML pages. The metadata can then be treated like any other RDF source, and users can perform DL reasoning or SPARQL queries on it. Together with the other data integration capabilities and visualization tools Composer can be used to develop mash-up applications. TopBraid is also a comprehensive RDFa Editor.

Visual RDF Graphs

TopBraid Composer can visualize arbitrary relationships among RDFS/OWL resources in a graphical format. Starting at the selected node, the graph can be expanded in any direction/relationship. Graphs also distinguish asserted relations (in black) from inferred relations (in blue). New resources and relationships can be edited visually.

Multi-User Support

Composer can be used in a single user mode working with ontologies stored as files or in a database. Multi-user mode is also supported enabling multiple users to simultaneously access and edit OWL ontologies and RDF data. In this mode, all users work on a shared Sesame repository. Each user can do incremental changes on his local view and then commit the changes to the server.

Ontology-Driven Forms

TopBraid Composer creates forms based on class definitions, and presents these forms as its primary editing mechanism for RDFS/OWL resources. The forms can be configured to display one or two columns and provide drag-and-drop support throughout. Complex resource descriptions such as class definitions and rules can be edited with syntax highlighting and auto-completion.

Form Customization

The automatically generated forms can be customized with a visual editor. This can be used to control the layout of widgets on the screen and to add static elements such as labels and visual separators. The forms metadata can be reused from other applications, for example to display ontological contents on Web forms.

Source Code Editing

TopBraid Composer can display the source code of the selected resource (class, property or individual) in various formats. The source code can be edited and re-asserted into the model as well. Based on the Eclipse environment, the source code of a complete RDFS/OWL file can be edited as well.

Imports and Namespace Management

TopBraid Composer has a sophisticated mechanism to manage namespaces and imports in your files. The system scans the files in the Eclipse workspace and keeps a record of which namespaces are used in which file. This file registry is used to automatically resolve imports to matching files. Local files can also be provided with a lock to mark them as read-only. The system can of course also import namespaces from the Web or download them into local copies.

Import of Databases, UML, XML Schema and Spreadsheets

TopBraid Composer can lift models from other formats into OWL/RDFS. The system provides a wizard to automatically import relational databases so that they can be treated as virtual RDF graphs. UML files created with tools like IBM Rational can be converted on a class-by-class basis. XML Schema files can be converted into OWL Schema, preserving namespace imports. Spreadsheets can be converted into classes and instances, and built-in refactorings can be used to further process the output from a single class into into multiple classes.

HTML Documentation Generation

TopBraid Composer can generate HTML pages from an RDFS/OWL model. The resulting pages (similar to JavaDoc) can be uploaded on the Web or shared with others for reviewing purposes. The HTML pages are consistently hyperlinked, and also include UML diagrams to explore class relationships. An example set of HTML documents generated with TopBraid Composer is available here.
The Maestro Edition also provides a capability to execute Java Server Pages with embedded SPARQL queries to generate arbitrary documents (e.g., HTML and XML files) from RDF data *

Visual Scripting Language for Data Processing *

TopBraid Composer Maestro Edition introduces a visual semantic web scripting language called SparqlMotion. SparqlMotion scripts are defined in RDF and consist of module definitions to load, transform and process data. A graphical editor can be used to define the data flow between the execution modules.

Import/Export and querying of arbitrary XML files *

An innovative new XML-OWL mapping feature enables Maestro users and semantic applications to load arbitrary XML files, run queries and transformations on the XML in RDF, manipulate the data, and save it back to XML without loss of information. See also blog entry.

Visual Report and Chart generation with BIRT *

Maestro also provides a comprehensive Business Intelligence Reporting Tool (BIRT). BIRT can be used to generate reports including tables and graphical charts (pie charts etc) where the data is directly taken from an ontology. BIRT can render reports in various formats including PDF and images, and the reports can be inserted into web pages to drive semantically enriched web applications. See also blog entry and video.

* Requires TopBraid Composer - Maestro Edition