TimeNets

Lukas Kobler, Jonas Auer

Aims:

The term TimeNets represents a method to provide a different view on genealogical than family trees do. While family trees do not provide a method to model events like marriage, divorce, birth and death of persons in time, TimeNets are able to represent such things. Therefore, the sequential order of events is modeled in a comprehensive and easy understandable way. This is done by using the x-axis as a representation of the time. This means, that the y-axis can be used to represent relationships between the persons.

Strictly speaking, the different persons in the layout are modeled as life lines, starting at their birth date and ending at their death date along the x-axis.  The relationships of marriage and divorce are represented by letting the lifelines converging and diverging, respectively. By using this method, the possibility of representing polygamous relationships with more than two individuals is given. Finally, the relationship of a child birth is represented by a vertical line exiting the parents and entering the child.

Usage:

Our application can be used with GEDCOM files. These files are a very popular format to save genealogical data. After starting the application, the user can can choose a Dataset using a FileChooser (Open Button). Additionally to the paper we also implemented a drag and drop mechanism, which makes it easier to navigate through the structure.

The Degree of Interest (DOI) values can be manipulated, either by clicking on  a lifeline or using the search bar. The slider can be used to threshold the lifelines, which are being drawn. Persons, with a DOI value below a certain threshold are not drawn anymore.

In case the birthdate or death date of a person was approximated, the lifeline either starts or ends with a alpha gradient.

Datasets:

Our application was tested with the following datasets:

• Bronte.ged <Link> This dataset is a rather small example and contains around 20 persons at all. Therefore, the displayed visualization provides a very good overview of the genealogical data. There were no mentionable problems with this dataset.
• Eldar.ged <Link> The problem with this dataset is the lack marriage and divorce. Therefore, the only relationship shown in the visualization by using this dataset is the child birth relationship.
• Royal92.ged <Link> The biggest problem with this dataset is its size. The estimation of the missing data does not take much time. However, there are some performance issues due to the massive amount of information. This problem can be solved by changing the degree of interest threshold such that the visualized information gets reduced.

Technology:

The program was implemented with Java. For converting the GEDCOM files to Java classes with used the library Gedcom4j. (http://gedcom4j.org/main/)

The rendering of the TimeNets was implemented using JavaFX.

How to Run:

The program can be started, by executing the JAR file and selecting a dataset.

Links:

Paper http://vis.stanford.edu/files/2010-TimeNets-AVI.pdf

The original paper which was used as template for the application.