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CityPlot: Colored ER Diagrams to Visualize Structure and Contents of Databases

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Abstract

CityPlot generates an extended version of a traditional entity-relationship diagram for a database. It is intended to provide a combined view of database structure and contents. The graphical output resembles the metaphor of a city. Data points are visualized according to data type and completeness. An open source reference implementation is available from http://cran.r-project.org/.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grant DU 352/5-1 and Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) grant 01EZ0941A. The authors thank the reviewers for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Medical Informatics, University of Münster, Albert-Schweitzer-Campus 1, Gebäude A11, 48149, Münster, Germany

    Martin Dugas

  2. Department of Information Systems, University of Münster, Leonardo-Campus 3, 48149, Münster, Germany

    Gottfried Vossen

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  1. Martin Dugas
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  2. Gottfried Vossen
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Correspondence to Martin Dugas.

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Dugas, M., Vossen, G. CityPlot: Colored ER Diagrams to Visualize Structure and Contents of Databases. Datenbank Spektrum 12, 215–218 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13222-012-0102-x

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