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historical timeline modelling
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Posted by Dr Andus
Mar 7, 2011 at 04:53 PM
I’d appreciate some suggestions for software to do following. I’ve conducted several years’ worth of research, where I collected different types of data about different events over time. Now, I’d like to summarise all the data associated with specific events and lay them out along a timeline, also for presentation purposes, to communicate what specific data I have about particular events.
One way to do this is to create a long, long table, where the row is the event, and the column is the type of data collected (or the other way round). Excel or Word could do this. However, the table visually is not the most successful for presentation purposes, as one event might just have one type of data (perhaps in cell 5), while other events may have 9 events.
Ideally, I’d like to present it almost as a 2-D tree that would have some branches or nodes that are thicker, while others are thinner. Any fancy solutions out there for something like this?
I was wondering if Treesheets could be an alternative to Word/Excel? Or some mindmapping software? I do like Cmap Tools but I’m not sure it can really handle a massive tree (4 years of data, of about 50-70 events, possible up to 1 to 20 different types of data / event ). Thanks!
Posted by Pierre Paul Landry
Mar 7, 2011 at 05:17 PM
Would a Gantt-type chart suit your needs ?
Also check out this timeline mode of the Calendar
http://www.public.sqlnotes.net/download/infoqube/samples/timeline2.png
InfoQube can display both of these.
Pierre
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 7, 2011 at 06:25 PM
I’ve been using TreeSheets quite a lot recently. I find it incredible that such excellent software is free. Nevertheless, in my view it provides a specific perspective which probably wouldn’t fair well with long timelines.
I suggest you put ‘timeline’ in the search box at the left; it will bring several programs that we have discussed here in the past.
Much of this software is aimed at presentations, so its information management features are often unimpressive. The ideal for me would be the combination of a strong data management infrastructure with appealing presentation features.
Apart for InfoQube, already suggested, I believe you should take a look at MindView http://www.matchware.com/en/ It is probably the more powerful of the major mindmapping applications, and the only one in my recollection to include a timeline view. It is also the most appealing visually; not surprising since the company also makes a multimedia authoring tool.
Posted by pereh
Mar 7, 2011 at 07:14 PM
TimelineMaker is a very good soultion for timelines (http://www.timelinemaker.com/); however, I do not know if it would suit your needs. It is a bit pricey, but it was offered a ‘bitsdujour’ some time ago, and may come back at a special price.
Peter.
Posted by Mitchell Kastner
Mar 7, 2011 at 09:20 PM
I would try to master InfoQube, but if you cannot you may want to check out casemap and timemap both available from http://www.casesoft.com. But clearly InfoQube is the all in one solution providing you can master it. Btw: the help you can get from Pierre and the expert users of InfoQube is breathtakingly good. So mastery may not be problematic especially if you are highly motivated
Mitch Kastner