Overview
I had the opportunity to use Microsoft Visio for creating RDF data, so this is a memo of that experience.
https://www.microsoft.com/ja-jp/microsoft-365/visio/flowchart-software
Note that Microsoft Visio is not a tool specialized for creating RDF data, but it is a flowchart and diagramming software with high usability. Therefore, I attempted to convert data created with this tool into RDF.
For converting data created in Microsoft Visio to RDF, the following Python library is used.
https://pypi.org/project/vsdx/
Data Creation
This time, I created the following network.
The following example was used as a reference.
https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-primer/#fig4
For creating resources, select an ellipse as shown below. For literals, select a rectangle.
For editing properties, connect nodes with a drawing connector, and enter the property from “Edit Text” as shown below.
Below is a creation example.
Resources and properties are basically described using URIs. Also, do not connect from literals (rectangles) to other nodes; connect only from resources (ellipses) to other nodes.
However, as part of the conversion library’s processing described later, if simple strings are given for resources and properties, http://example.org/ is prepended to output them as URIs.
In other words, even if created as follows, the same RDF data will be produced.
Conversion Library
This library will be introduced in a separate article.
Files created with Microsoft Visio are saved as vsdx files.
By inputting this vsdx file and performing the conversion process, the following output is obtained.
Additionally, using the visualization tool created by Masahide Kanzaki, the following network diagram can be obtained.
The method introduced in the following article was used to create this visualization.
Summary
By using Microsoft Visio, it was possible to efficiently create network diagrams with features such as changing node and edge styles, collaborative editing, and adding comments.
There are still many incomplete aspects, but we hope that the methods introduced here can help lower the barrier to RDF data creation.