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Version: 3.2

2.9 Exploration

Exploration is an interactive viewer for the knowledge graph. Once a Build has processed your Target Entities into the graph, you use Exploration to search for nodes, place them on a canvas, expand along their Relationships, and trace the paths between them.

You start from an empty canvas, add the nodes you care about, and grow the picture outward from there.

The Exploration canvas: a central node linked to related nodes by labelled relationship edges, with the selected node's actions and properties in the panel on the right

note

Exploration shows only data that has been processed into the graph. Data that a Build has imported into staging but not yet processed does not appear here. If the graph looks empty, run a Build with Process on first.

Sessions​

You work in Sessions, independent canvases shown as tabs at the top. Each session keeps its own set of nodes and its own layout, so you can hold several lines of enquiry side by side. Use the + tab to create a new session.

Sessions live in your browser rather than on the server, and you can have up to three at once.

Add nodes​

Choose Add nodes to bring nodes onto the canvas. There are two ways to find them.

Label Search browses the entity types (labels) in the graph, each with its node count. Click a label to add a sample of its nodes (up to 10) to the graph, then choose Done.

The Add nodes panel on the Label Search tab, listing entity types with their node counts

Advanced Search finds nodes by a term across their properties, scoped to specific labels. Enter a term of at least three characters, select the labels to search within (up to ten), and choose Apply.

The Advanced Search tab: a search term scoped to the selected labels

A session holds up to 200 nodes. The counter at the bottom right shows how many of the 200 you have used.

Explore the graph​

On the canvas, each node is a record and each edge is a Relationship between two nodes, labelled with its relationship type (for example BELONGS_TO).

  • Move a node by dragging it.
  • Zoom with the controls at the bottom or the mouse wheel, and fit the graph to the view.
  • Choose a layout to arrange the graph automatically: ELK, Force, Dagre or Hierarchy.
  • The minimap in the corner shows the whole graph and where you are in it.

Node details and actions​

Click a node to open its panel, which lists the node's properties and an Actions menu.

Add related expands the graph along the node's relationships. Choose which related entity types to include, set the Relation depth (1 to 5 hops), and choose Add to existing graph. Up to 25 related nodes are loaded per expansion.

The Add related dialog: the Relation depth slider and the related entity types to bring in

The other actions are:

  • Create new session: move the selected node (or nodes) into a new session, to carry on exploring them on a fresh canvas.
  • Isolate this node: show the node on its own, hiding everything else in the session.
  • Remove this node: take the node off the canvas.

Find a path between nodes​

Select several nodes by holding Shift and clicking them. With exactly two nodes selected, choose Resolve to find and display the shortest path between them. If the two nodes are not connected, DCH reports that no path was found.