How to use the tool

Run the tool

  • Construct a sqlite database as described in How to set up the tool.
  • Define var db = new sqlite3.Database('pathToDatabase');
  • Define restapi.listen('Port number','IP adress');
  • Run a Node.js server by calling node rest_server.js .
  • Modify links to point to the services at the running server in the files main.html, register.html, entityInfo.html, attributeInfo.html and globalInfo.html.
  • Run http-server (if run locally)
  • Open localhost or a corresponding web page linking to main.html or some introductory page containing the appropriate link to main.html.
  • Change data

    Once the tool is up and running, changing data and using the tool on different use cases is very simple. Just change the pathToDatabase string, re-run the Node.js server and reload the browser tab containing main.html file.

    Structure

    The tool consists of three different redescription set exploration views that can be selected at the tools main page :


    The main steps on how to use each of this exploration views are explained on the corresponding view page. On each user click in the interface, a new component is displayed below currently displayed components. Please note, that you might need to scroll to see all the components.

    Limitations

    Browser and memory

    The tool is optimised to work on Google Chrome browser . Some features, such as creating and loading the redescription relation graph require more than 1Gb of RAM memory. Thus, it is required to allow 64-bit Google Chrome to use the extended amount of memory per tab. This can be done by inserting the command --js-flags="--max-old-space-size=8384" at the end of the Target field obtained by selecting Properties on the Google Chrome shortcut icon (Windows). The tool also works on other more popular browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer . However, depending on the number of redescriptions and the number of measures used, some lag in crossfilter performance can be detected even when Google Chrome works without problems. Also, increasing the amount of allowed memory is browser specific.

    Loading entity or attribute graph

    Entity or attribute graphs are potentially large pieces of data that currently must be divided into chunks to be transferred from the server to the client. The reason for this are limitations and high memory usage of json parser.


    The tool outputs redescription support as a html table if redescription support set contains less than 100000 entities. If this set contains more than 100000 entities the support set is exported to the output file in .csv format.

    Supported browsers for output to file option can be seen here .