[topicmaps-comment] Thinkmaps- potential display/UI for Topic Maps?

["Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@home.com>]

If you haven't encountered it yet, Thinkmap (http://www.thinkmap.com) has an
incredible user interface engine, not for topic maps specifically but for
relational databases (can use flat files too) in general.  It's really hard
to describe, but it's like raising the Brain to the third power (remember
Kal Ahmed's TM4J interface to the Brain?)

One of the best examples was the Visual Thesaurus, but that seems to be off
the air right now.  The other fabulous example is an online "exhibit" the
Smithsonian Museum hosts, at:

http://www.si.edu/revealingthings/load-index.html

You MUST see this site.  It loads a java applet, so java has to be turned
on.

The Thinkmap system has two parts, a design environment "studio" and a
server.  There is a 30-day free trial on the design environment.  I just
started looking at it.  Unfortunately, the whole thing is too expensive for
personal use, but for a commercial enterprise it would be reasonable.

Rows in database entity tables become nodes, and rows in "intertwinkle"
tables - the ones that relate two entities - become edges.  You can assign
all kinds of properties to nodes and edges, and change them dynamically,
like the affinity or relevance of an edge or edge type.  The display itself
can be dynamic, with the displayed graphs moving and responsive to mouse
input.  There are many built-in types of display, and they are amazingly
customizable.

I think that this system might be superb for displaying topic maps.  Anyone
else care to comment?

Cheers,

Tom P