The ultimate goal of MetaV is not simply to collect biblical data. It is to make that information easier to navigate and understand. This is the last in a series of posts outlining the roadmap for MetaV, a database of people, places, passages, and periods of time found in the Bible.
Existing tools
The tools page on SoulLiberty.com includes several interactive visualizations dealing with readability, Paul’s life and journeys, and cross references. Most importantly, there is an interactive explorer which allows the user to filter by any combination of location, time, or canonical reference. These were all made by plugging the data from MetaV into existing applications, namely Tableau Public and Google Maps.
Current efforts
I am working to improve upon the widely popular graphic, “Mapping God’s Bloodline” by making it more interactive. Users would be able to zoom/center the graph by searching for that person’s name or click on a name in the graph to see details about him. The platform for this application is Flash and will be built such that it can be integrated into third-party software or migrated to a mobile (tablet) app.
Others have contacted me about using MetaV in a more full-featured piece of software (still at the very early stages of development). I also plan to experiment with the feasibility of loading data into Silk – a new platform for dynamically linking and visualizing data and pages. You can follow progress of this at bible.silkapp.com
Long-term efforts
MetaV will eventually become a suite of applications, all designed for different functions. On the web, it will be about next-generation search which is geared toward displaying knowledge about a subject rather than a list of resources you must dig through to discover that same knowledge. For mobile devices, search will be combined with limited visualization capabilities. On more powerful desktops, fully interactive, integrated visualizations (maps, family trees, timelines, word usage, etc.) will take Bible software to the next level.