Does anyone have experience here with using a 3D modelling software for quick concept mapping? So far I've been using 2D software for this such as VUE or SmartDraw but I feel my imagination is being restricted by 2D. I'd like to map the relationships between the various entities (organisations, places, people) that I've studied for my project and be able to examine the overall creation from various perspectives. I see that there are loads of free tools for 3D modelling out there:
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/25-free-3d-modelling-applications-you-should-not-miss/

I don't need anything fancy, the simpler the better. The analogue alternatives are play dough or Lego blocks...

This sounds like a job for Personal Brain http://www.thebrain.com/

I can't think of anything faster in 3D.

Topicscape Pro (http://www.topicscape.com/ is the best I've found for this - better in some ways than theBrain - though not updated very frequently. I'm sure there will be debate over what 3D concept mapping actually is though.

Axon also has a 3D view - not sure if you would find that view useful.

Also - if you want to get more in depth there are several good academic packages that are more technical - ORA comes to mind - it will take some more work to set up your data, but if you want to visualize your information network its great (there are others, but this one is best from a user interface standpoint:

http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu

Dr Andus:

You may find this suggestion a bit crazy but I used a tool when I needed to express the relationships between particular concepts and documents. The tool I used was Biolayout Express 3d: http://www.biolayout.org . It is free. It can import files from yEd (yEd GraphML files (.graphml file extension)) -- A superb 2D graphics editor, and many other formats. I had written some code to prepare input to Biolayout but perhaps with the yEd input you could get a start.

The point is that it produces 3D models that you can rotate and view. Since it was designed for representing biological / chemical models it is very capable. It can handle things like the strength of connection between the items you are expressing, which can expose clusters of concepts.

You may find it to be fun in exploring your data.

Charles

Thank you for all the suggestions. I can see now that 3D is interpreted and utilised quite differently by the various suggestions mentioned. Some seem to be focusing on modelling a single 3D object, others turn a tree hierarchy into a 3D representation, while others focus on representing massive networks with a huge amount of data points. To be more specific about my needs, the relationships I need to map are not hierarchical, and there are not too many entities involved (somewhere between 10 to 100, depending on how I aggregate them). The relationships are mostly between business and government organisations laid out in time and geographical space. It would be nice if I could represent the different players with different icons (or their own logos), situate them in a 3D space, connect them with arrows or tubes or lines and annotate them and the typesof relationships with short notes. So this is not a mind map, there is no hierarchy. It's more like a 3D concept map.

can you be a little more specific on time and geographical space? What is your goal in visualizing in a third dimension?

Zman wrote:

can you be a little more specific on time and geographical space? What is your goal in
visualizing in a third dimension?

The "geographical" character of the space is not that important. It just meant to suggest that the objects I want to model are not in the same geographical location, but that fact can be represented by just placing the various objects at various distances from each other. "Time" means that some of the objects had changed over time (years), evolving into new objects. So I could represent them side-by-side (e.g. a small business turning into a larger business or a government organisation turning into a private organisation).

The purpose of 3D modelling would be to create an interconnected structure that shows the relationships between all the objects. I would like to get a sense of what such structure (or overall object) would look like as a whole, but also from the vantage point of some of the individual objects. If I could annotate the objects and their relationships that would be great. So it would be a hybrid textual-visual object.

I suppose I could try to draw this on a really large piece of paper. The problem with that is that it would only have one (top down God-like) perspective, and also that no paper ever seems to be big enough. Play dough might be better but I would need to buy bucketfulls of it...

I would agree with Alexander that you should look at PersonalBrain. You can use the CAPTURE THOUGHT ICON tool to grad a screen clip of each company's logo to use as the icon. You can label the LINKS, change there colors, to denote the relationships. You can use JUMP LINKS to note non-hierarchical relationships. You can switch from the NORMAL view to an EXPANDED VIEW, which will allow you to freely expand your network outward and relocate the entities at will on your BRAIN.

You can add TAGS and THOUGHT TYPES to further categorize the entities. For example, you can use tags to add a chronologic aspect to the brain. Or you can make types to signify non-government organizations from government agencies. Thought types can standardize the colors of each type to add that visual reference. You can also link each entity to its web site, if that is helpful. You can add reference material as attachments or separate items in the brain.

I don't know if it will do all you want, but PersonalBrain is much more versatile that it might first appear.

Steve Z.

I agree that you can probably get where you want to go with theBrain, The next obvious question has to do with budget and your intended end user. The link annotations in theBrain will probably require at least the core version - ~$150? If you are doing it for personal consumption (or at low budget, you can do almost as much with VUE, and there are some other options with academic software things similar to ORA and some tools that you can piece together with things like Network Workbench, spreadsheets, etc. - but if you are providing the product to a customer then academic software may not be an option (from license perspective).

Zman wrote:

I agree that you can probably get where you want to go with theBrain, The next obvious
question has to do with budget and your intended end user. The link annotations in
theBrain will probably require at least the core version - ~$150?

Quite right. $150 is a bit steep, unless I fall in love with TheBrain and it will become part of my standard set-up. I'll check out ORA as well, I'm intrigued... Thanks.

Dr Andus, the Brain developers have made available a varied assortment of video tutorials which are are quite helpful. As well, there are examples of various uses people have made of The Brain. There is indeed a noteworthy seriousness of intent on the developers' part when it comes to ensuring prospective users get a sense of the Brain's varied uses, as well as learning how to use the program.

Daly

Dr Andus wrote:

Zman wrote:
>I agree that you can probably get where you want to go with theBrain, The
next obvious
>question has to do with budget and your intended end user. The link
annotations in
>theBrain will probably require at least the core version - ~$150?


Quite right. $150 is a bit steep, unless I fall in love with TheBrain and it will
become part of my standard set-up. I'll check out ORA as well, I'm intrigued...
Thanks.

I agree with Daly. The service provided by the developers of PersonalBrain (or simply TheBrain in the new version 7, currently in beta) is outstanding. Further, PersonalBrain has been around for more than 14 years, runs on Windows, MaxOSX and Linux and allows you to access your brains online.

I am biased as I have been long time user of PB for nearly 12 years now. It has allowed me to narrow down the mapping/outlining/note taking etc. tools I am using every day from 3 to one. Further, I am more or less healed from CRIMPING.

Dominik

Dominik, I am interested in your reply because I know that you, as am I, were a long-time crimper. Also, you've mentioned before you have used PersonalBrain for a long time.

But now you are saying you have got from three apps to one, so I am thinking that it's the addition of new features in both versions 5 and 6 which made it possible to reduce the number of apps.

I'd appreciate hearing more about how you use the Brain. I've been looking at if very seriously, and going through the various tutorials.

Thanks.

Daly

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

I agree with Daly. The service provided by the developers of PersonalBrain (or simply
TheBrain in the new version 7, currently in beta) is outstanding. Further,
PersonalBrain has been around for more than 14 years, runs on Windows, MaxOSX and
Linux and allows you to access your brains online.

I am biased as I have been long time
user of PB for nearly 12 years now. It has allowed me to narrow down the
mapping/outlining/note taking etc. tools I am using every day from 3 to one. Further,
I am more or less healed from CRIMPING.

Dominik

Another one I just came across in this category:

SpatialNote, 3D note-taking tool (beta)

https://spatialnote.com/features

It looks like they're trying to implement a memory palace or mind palace technique.

Thanks for the tip.

The interface is a bit disorienting -- though that might be the point of it. Over here, with Safari on a Mac, the site quickly consumed a lot of CPU resources. I haven't diagnosed what that's about.

Definitely a concept worth exploring more, though.

Yes, they say they are doing a mind palace simulation.

Dr Andus wrote:

Another one I just came across in this category:

SpatialNote, 3D note-taking tool (beta)

https://spatialnote.com/features

It looks like they're trying to implement a memory palace or mind palace
technique.