I love graphical representation of data. Back in the day, I did my thesis on the graphical representation of intrusion detection systems’ output to manage threats effectively. I was even published in a book. But enough of that self back scratching, lets talk WPF.

Yes, WPF. Windows Presentation Foundation. A wonderful new technology from Microsoft that really pushes the envelope of desktop GUIs. I think WPF needs a blog post on its own, so I’ll do that this week and give some cool demos that are out there on the interwebs. I’ve been playing around with it last week and built a very basic RSS reader with some cool visual effects quickly and surprisingly easy. There is a great article here on how to get your machine kitted out for developing a WPF app. Give it a shot.

But the main focus today is an application built by the friendly people at Dot Net Solutions. Disclaimer: I am an employee. ;) Using WPF as the backbone, we’ve come up with a great way of experiencing the Wikipedia world without leaving your desktop. Dubbed Wikipedia Explorer, this application allows you to navigate around Wikipedia in ways that really show the inner links of Wikipedia.

Using the different views available, such as the Network view, a graph is built up on how articles are linked together. Its awesome! The 3DExplorer view allows you to see in a 3 dimensional view the articles linked in a page but the Network view blows you away. Give it a try, its been stitched together using ClickOnce so you’re always up to date.

Links:
A blog post on the Dot Net Solutions Blog.
The case study page I wrote.
Download!
.NET 3.0 is also required.