Using the javascript library D3, we create Storyworld Explorer—a web-based software with interactive visualizations from a simulation framework that procedurally generated narratively rich story worlds.
Click here to interact with the relationship matrix.
Click here to read a paper submission for a conference for late-breaking-work in computational media .
(a) The entire Character Sheet is for a character named Mary Emma Rodeman. Note that the biographical information at the top left is scrollable. The scrollable Character Description panel describes the main characters' background information, key relationships, and other attributes. The Traits Scatterplot panel includes personality factors, each measured on a scale from --1 to 1), the number of friends, and the number of enemies. The user selects what traits they would like to plot for the x-axis and y-axis, with the idea that such exploration might reveal exciting trends and outlier characters. For instance, the Traits Scatterplot shows a positive correlation between extroversion and the number of friends, which we could use to confirm or tune simulation parameters. The Relationship Matrix is a matrix that displays all the relationships between characters in the main character's social network. Each square visualizes the relationship from the perspective of the character who labels the row. The user can click on the legend channels to focus on different relationship types. Nested squares show that two characters can have more than one connection. The order in which characters are listed is by default sorted by salience to the main character, but the users can also sort the characters by alphabetical order, degrees of the node, and birth year. Set to 20 by default, the user can change the number of characters that are shown in this matrix, where the filtering includes only the top characters by the sorting metric. The Relationship Matrix may reveal the social network's Pockets, such as the group of neighbors (yellow squares) in the left middle of the example in Figure a.
(b) In the Relationship Matrix, when the user hovers over Elaine Peets, all of her relationships are highlighted.
c) In the Relationship Matrix, when the user hovers over the relationship between Carrie and Elaine, two nested squares appear, showing that Carrie and Elaine are sisters and that Carrie views Elaine as an enemy (outer blue square). In contrast, Elaine views Carrie as a friend (outer purple square). Text displays by the hovered square to indicate the most salient relationship that the character in the row has with the character in the column. The discovery of this intriguing relationship could lead to the excavation of additional narrative material involving these two characters.