The Web has evolved from HTML quite dramatically over the last few years with revolutionary techniques for content and structural modeling, including XML (eXtensible Markup Language), RDF (Resource Definition Framework) and Topic Maps. Compared to HTML, the content of XML documents is enriched with semantic and structural features, and also is completely separated from its visual appearance. This allows a Web document to be displayed in any desired form. Given such an unrestricted choice, many companies and end users prefer a graphically rich document appearance with effective visual access to semantic and structural information. Visualizing the Semantic Web: XML-based Internet and Information Visualization is the first book dealing specifically with visualization of the Second-Generation Web. It presents the state-of-the-art research in this area and focuses on key topics such as:

• The nature of the Semantic Web and its relationship to Information Visualization
• Visualization of semantic and structural information and metadata
• Ontology-based and Topic Maps visualizations
• Visual interfaces for retrieving, browsing and mapping semantic information
• SVG/X3D as new visualization techniques for the semantic web
• Methods used to construct high quality metadata / metadata taxonomies
• Recommender systems, interface issues related to filtering and recommending on the Web
• A comparative analysis of web services and the semantic web
• Semantic-oriented use of existing visualization methods
• Semantically enhanced solutions for the medical community

The design of semantically and graphically enriched interfaces for e-commerce and information retrieval and presentation is currently a challenging area of practical Web development. Most of the techniques and methods discussed can be applied now, making this book essential reading for visualization researchers as well as XML and Web developers.