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As we see more collaboration forums emerge, one question that naturally arises is the joint authoring or editing of images. This is particularly important as “official” slide decks or presentations come to the fore.
There are perhaps many different ways to skin this cat. In this article, I describe how to do so using the free, open source SVG editing program, Inkscape.
Like many of you, I have been creating and editing images for years. I am by no means a graphics artist, but images and diagrams have been essential for communicating my work.
Until a few years back, I was totally a bitmap man. I used Paint Shop Pro (bought by Corel in 2004 and getting long in the tooth) and did a lot of copying and pasting.
I switched to Inkscape about two years ago for the following reasons:
Once you have a working image in Inkscape, make sure all collaborators have a copy of the software. Then:
]; this will resize and put your target image in the full display windowOf course, it is more often the case that not all collaborators may have a copy of Inkscape or that the image began in the SVG format.
The image below began as a Windows Powerpoint clip art file, which has then gone through some modifications. Note the bearded guy’s hand holding the paper is out of registry (because I screwed up in earlier editing, but I also can easily fix because it is a vector image! 
). Also note we have the border from Inkscape as suggested above. This file, BTW, is people.png, and was created as a PNG after a screen capture from Inkscape:
When beginning in Powerpoint or as clip art, files in the format of Windows metafile (*.wmf) or extended WMF (*.emf) work well. (For example, you can download and play with the native Inkscape format of people.svg, or the people.wmf or people.emf versions of the image above.) If you already have images in a Powerpoint presentation, save in one of these two formats, with (*.emf) preferred. (EMF is generally better for text.)
You can open or load these files directly into Inkscape. Generally, they will come in as a group of vectors; to edit the pieces, you should “ungroup.”
After editing per the instructions in the previous section, if you need to re-insert back into Powerpoint, please use the *.emf format (and make sure you do not save text as paths).
For example, see the following PNG graphic taken from a Inkscape file (figure_text.svg):
We can save it as an EMF (figure_textpath.emf) to a Powerpoint, with the option of converting text to paths:
Or, we can save it as an EMF (figure_text.emf) to a Powerpoint, only this time not converting text to paths and then “ungrouping” once in Powerpoint:
Note the latter option, text not as path, is the far superior one. However, also note that borders are added to the figures and vertical text is rotated 90o back to horizontal. Nonetheless, the figure is fully editable, including text. Also, if the original Inkscape figures are constructed with lines of the same color as fills, the border conversion also works well.
Frankly, especially with text, because there can be orientation and other changes going from Inkscape to Powerpoint, I recommend using Inkscape and its native SVG for all early modifications and to keep a canonical copy of your images. Then, prior to completion of the deck, save as EMF for import into Powerpoint and then clean up. If changes later need to be made to the graphic, I recommend doing so in Inkscape and then re-importing.
I should note there is an option, as well, in Inkscape to convert raster images to vector ones (use Path -> Trace bitmap … and invoke the multiple scans with colors). This is doable, but involves quite a bit of image copying, manipulation and color separation to achieve workable results. You may want to see further Inkscape’s documentation on tracing, or more fully this reference dealing with color.
Of course, there are likely many other ways to approach these issues of collaboration and sharing. I will leave it to others to suggest and explain those options.
Well, for another client and another purpose, I was goaded into screening my Sweet Tools listing of semantic Web and -related tools and to assemble stuff from every other nook and cranny I could find. The net result is this enclosed listing of some 140 or so tools — most open source — related to semantic Web ontology building in one way or another.
Ever since I wrote my Intrepid Guide to Ontologies nearly three years ago (and one of the more popular articles of this site, though it is now perhaps a bit long in the tooth), I have been intrigued with how these semantic structures are built and maintained. That interest, in no small measure, is why I continue to maintain the Sweet Tools listing.
As far as I know, the following is the largest and most comprehensive listing of ontology building tools available. I broadly interpret the classification of ‘ontology building’; I include, for example, vocabulary extraction and prompting tools, as well as ontology visualization and mapping.
There are some 140 tools, perhaps 90 or so are still in active use. (Given the scope, not every tool could be inspected in detail. Some listed as being perhaps inactive may not be so, and others not in that category perhaps should be.) Of the entire roster of tools, somewhere on the order of 12 to 20 are quite impressive and deserving of local installation, test runs, and close inspection.
There are relatively few tools useful to non-specialists (or useful to engaging knowledgeable publics in the ontology-building exercise). There appear to be key gaps in the entire workflow from domain scoping and initial ontology definition and vocabulary candidates, to longer-term maintenance and revision. For example, spreadsheets would appear to be a possible useful first step in any workflow process (which is why irON is listed), but the spreadsheet tool per se is not listed herein (nor are text editors).
I surely have missed some tools and likely improperly assigned others. Please drop me an email or comment on this post with any revisions or suggestions.
In my own view, there are some tools that definitely deserve a closer look. My favorite candidates — for very different reasons and for very different places in the workflow — are (in no particular order): Apelon DTS, irON, FlexViz, Knoodl, Protégé, diagramic.com, BooWa, COE, ontopia, Anzo, PoolParty, Vine (and voc2rdf), Erca, Graphl, and GrOWL. Each one of these links is more fully described below. Also, all tools in the Vocabulary Prompting Tools category (which also includes extraction) are worth reviewing since all or nearly all have online demos.
Other tools may also be deserving, depending on use case. Some of the more specific analysis and conversion tools, for example, are in the Miscellaneous category.
Also, some purists may quibble with why some tools are listed here (such as inclusion of some stuff related to Topic Maps). Well, my answer to that is there are no real complete solutions, and whatever we can pragmatically do today requires glueing together many disparate parts.
Though all are not relevant, see my post from a couple of years back on large-scale RDF graph software.
If you are like me, you like to clear the decks before the start of major new projects. In Structured Dynamics‘ case, we actually have multiple new initiatives getting underway, so the deck clearing has been especially focused this time.
As a result, we have updated Sweet Tools, AI3’s listing of semantic Web and -related tools, with the addition of some 30 new tools, updates to others, and deletions of five expired entries. The dataset now lists 835 tools. And, as before, there is also now a new structured data view via conStruct (pick the Sweet Tools dataset).
We have also updated SWEETpedia, a listing of 246 research articles that use Wikipedia in one way or another to do semantic-Web related research. Some 20 new papers were added to this update.
Please use the comments section on this post to suggest new tools or new research articles for inclusion in future updates.
Structured Dynamics and its Citizen DAN project has been selected as one of the finalists to proceed with a formal proposal for the 2010 $5 million Knight News Challenge. The proposal extends SD’s basic structWSF and conStruct Drupal frameworks to provide a data appliance and network (DAN) to support citizen journalists with data and analysis at the local, community level.
Thanks to all of you who submitted votes in support of the earlier draft proposal. The News Challenge received 2,489 proposals for the 2010 contest, according to Jose Zamora, journalism program associate at the Knight Foundation. According to the Nieman Journalism Lab, Zamora said 65 percent of proposals came through the closed category and 35 percent were open.
The next-round full proposals are due by January 31. Eventual winners are slated to be announced around mid-June 2010.
Sweet Tools, AI3’s listing of semantic Web and -related tools, now has a total of 810 tools listed, a significant expansion from the last update. With the retirement of 19 prior tools, this new listing represents an increase of 93 tools, or 13%, from the previous version that listed 736.
The Sweet Tools dataset is also now showing the way to a couple of exciting innovations: new generic ontology-driven applications for structured data; and, tools for authoring structured data via spreadsheets.
So, here is the summary of major changes in this new listing:
A completely new structured data view of the listing, courtesy of Structured Dynamics‘ structWSF and conStruct open source frameworks. This version can be viewed on the conStruct SCS Web site (pick the Sweet Tools dataset). You can compare this server-side presentation and version to the client-side JavaScript version using Exhibit that has been part of this blog for some timeTo see the major Sweet Tools page for this updated listing in its existing format, filter on ‘New’ under New or Existing? to see the recent additions. Alternatively, you can also see this same filtering using the conStruct structured data view by searching on the Status attribute using the value ‘New’; see example here.
Though still formative, the most exciting change with the Sweet Tools listing is this new presentation via conStruct. It is a structured data Web services framework with a UI, all offered as a set of modules to Drupal. To kick the tires with this new system, you may want to look at:
BTW, there are some helpful documentation pages that show how all of these various tools work and more, such as, for example, Browse. (Also, BTW, as a demo user, you also are not seeing all of the write and update tools, either; again, see the documentation.)
The essential underlying basis to conStruct is the structWSF Web services framework. There are still some aspects to this system that we feel are incomplete and we are working on. Some of these things include dropdown selections (controlled vocabulary selects); easier template creation; and intuitive template re-use. Nonetheless, these additions will come quickly, and what is here is already a great demonstration of how structured data can drive generic tools and interfaces.
The case study of how this system was constructed from a spreadsheet input using the irON vocabulary is described in an earlier post.
The updated Sweet Tools listing now includes nearly 50 different tools categories. The most prevalent categories are browser tools (RDF, OWL), information extraction, parsers or converters, composite application frameworks and general ontology tools. Each accounts for more than 8% — or more than 50 tools — of the total. This breakdown is as follows (click to expand):
There are no real discernable trends in application tool categories over the past couple of years.As for the languages these applications are written in, that has stayed pretty steady, too. Java is still the leading language at about 46%, which has been very slightly trending downward over the past three years or so. PHP has increased a bit as well. The current splits are (click to expand):
Background on prior listings and earlier statistics may be found on these previous posts:
With interim updates periodically over that period.
Structured Dynamics is one of the 320+ plus submitters (and counting!) to the 2010 $5 million Knight News Challenge. Our proposal is to extend our basic structWSF and conStruct Drupal frameworks to provide a data appliance and network (DAN) to support citizen journalists with data and analysis at the local, community level.
We invite you to look at our application and to provide comments or your rating of the application. The deadline for comments is tomorrow, and we will incorporate any appropriate last-minute suggestions. You can find our submission at:
Citizen DAN Proposal (or, search on ‘citizen dan’)
Please note: you must be signed in via a short submission to vote or comment on the application (or others shown in the listings).
Citizen DAN is meant to be a complete, open source framework for promoting citizen journalism. It is a:
Good decisions and good journalism require good starting information. Citizen DAN is a framework to provide access for any citizen to learn and compare local statistics and data with other similar communities. This helps to promote the grist for citizen journalism, as well as to provide a vehicle for discovery and learning across the community.
Citizen DAN will come pre-packaged with all necessary deployment components and documentation, including local data from government sources. It will include facilities for direct upload of additional local data in formats from spreadsheets to standard databases; many standard converters are included with the basic package.
Citizen DAN may be implemented either by local governments or by community advocacy groups. When deployed, using its clear documentation, sponsors may choose whether or what portions of local data are exposed to the broader Citizen DAN network. Data exposed on the network is automatically available to any other network community for comparison and analysis purposes.
(You may want to see our separate description — structWSF: A Framework for Collaboration Networks — of how this framework can lead to collaboration through widely distributed community nodes.)
The complete data appliance and network (DAN) is multi-lingual. If funded, this project will be tested and deployed in at least two prominent cities; one in Canada (French and English), and one in the United States (English and Spanish).
We think Citizen DAN is an exciting new prospect for local communities to share and use local data. Your support can help make this app available to any community for free.
And, in any case, do check out the other fine submissions to the challenge.
It has been eight months since the last major update to Sweet Tools, AI3’s listing of semantic Web and -related tools. With today’s release, there are now a total of 810 tools listed, crashing through the sound barrier of 761 tools. With the retirement of 19 prior tools, this new listing represents an increase of 93 tools, or 13%, from the previous version that listed 736.
But simply adding to the tools listing is not the cause of this longer than normal period between updates.
This little Sweet Tools dataset is now showing the way to a couple of exciting innovations: new generic ontology-driven applications for structured data; and, tools for authoring structured data via spreadsheets.
We deal with the former in this post. I will deal with the spreadsheet business in a subsequent post.
So, here is the summary of major changes in this new listing:
A completely new structured data view of the listing, courtesy of Structured Dynamics‘ structWSF and conStruct open source frameworks. This version can be viewed on the conStruct SCS Web site (pick the Sweet Tools dataset). You can compare this server-side presentation and version to the client-side JavaScript version using Exhibit that has been part of this blog for some timeTo see the major Sweet Tools page for this updated listing in its existing format, filter on ‘New’ under New or Existing? to see the recent additions. Alternatively, you can also see this same filtering using the conStruct structured data view by searching on the Status attribute using the value ‘New’; see example here.
Though still formative, the most exciting change with the Sweet Tools listing is this new presentation via conStruct. It is a structured data Web services framework with a UI, all offered as a set of modules to Drupal. To kick the tires with this new system, you may want to look at:
BTW, there are some helpful documentation pages that show how all of these various tools work and more, such as, for example, Browse. (Also, BTW, as a demo user, you also are not seeing all of the write and update tools, either; again, see the documentation.)
The essential underlying basis to conStruct is the structWSF Web services framework. There are still some aspects to this system that we feel are incomplete and we are working on. Some of these things include dropdown selections (controlled vocabulary selects); easier template creation; and intuitive template re-use. Nonetheless, these additions will come quickly, and what is here is already a great demonstration of how structured data can drive generic tools and interfaces.
As I said: More on this in a later post.
The updated Sweet Tools listing now includes nearly 50 different tools categories. The most prevalent categories are browser tools (RDF, OWL), information extraction, parsers or converters, composite application frameworks and general ontology tools. Each accounts for more than 8% — or more than 50 tools — of the total. This breakdown is as follows (click to expand):
There are no real discernable trends in application tool categories over the past couple of years.As for the languages these applications are written in, that has stayed pretty steady, too. Java is still the leading language at about 46%, which has been very slightly trending downward over the past three years or so. PHP has increased a bit as well. The current splits are (click to expand):
Background on prior listings and earlier statistics may be found on these previous posts:
With interim updates periodically over that period.
Note: Because of comments expirations on prior posts, this entry is now the new location for adding a suggested new tool. Simply provide your information in the comments section, and your tool will be included in the next update.
Much has been happening on the Structured Dynamics front of late. Besides welcoming Steve Ardire as a senior advisor to the company, we also have been issuing a steady stream of new products from our semantic Web pipeline.
This new slide show attempts to capture these products and relate them to the various layers in Structured Dynamics’ enterprise product stack:
The show indicates the role of scones, irON, structWSF, UMBEL, conStruct and others and how they leverage existing information assets to enable the semantic enterprise. And, oh, by the way, all of this is done via Web-accessible linked data and our practical technologies.
Enjoy!
