NOVIS - NIST Ontological Visualization

NOVIS provides an interactive visual interface to the terminology used in a variety of standards related to sustainable manufacturing. The area of sustainable manufacturing is rapidly evolving and includes a network of information standards that define the language of discourse for this new area. Traditional document style standards and dictionary style definitions are very limiting when it comes to getting a holistic picture of the sustainability landscape for manufacturing. The task of understanding the challenges in achieving a sustainability objective is very difficult when non-experts have to browse through several pages of document standards to find relevant information. The NOVIS tool provides a means for people to interactively visualize, browse, and query these standards. 

Furthermore, while the tool presented here supports the area of sustainable manufacturing specifically, its applicability is not limited to that area.  The software was developed as part of the Sustainable Manufacturing program of the Engineering Laboratory at NIST and is being released with content derived from three standards in the sustainable  manufacturing area: 

• A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard by GHG Protocol 
• Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard by GHG Protocol 
• PAS 2050 - A BSI standard for life cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions.  

The release also includes a detailed user's guide that describes the features of NOVIS, and a Protégé plug-in that allows users to add their own terminology for viewing through the visual interface.  We encourage you to download and try the NOVIS tool and provide feedback.