Integrated framework for the visualization of relational databases and related Web content

This paper proposes an integrated framework for relating and visualizing relational databases and related Web content. This framework allows users to dynamically extract relations from HTML documents over the Web, to relate them with relations stored in local databases, and to interactively visualize them. The emphasis in our framework is put on integrating visualization schemata, source data, Web content and Web applications by means of the relational algebra. Our framework is based on the principle that every visualized object represents a view relation. In our framework each visualization schema is treated as an extended view relation, and can be related with local database records by applying relational join operations. Furthermore, our framework provides users with a method for specifying special view relations to be extracted from HTML documents over the Web. These "Web views" can be combined with database views through relational database operations to simultaneously visualize mutually related database content and Web content.