To define a facet, you drag/drop the column name to another area of the canvas. For my merged exhibit, I used the facets origin (i.e., CSAIL vs CCNMT), plus group, position, and building.

Then I exported the merged data into the same JSON format as the original sources, cloned one of the pages, and referenced the merged data set. From there it was just a bit of tweaking to make the div elements in the HTML page reference the facets that I’d defined.

Stunning. Behind the scenes it’s all RDF, but the point is that nobody needs to know or care about that. And the larger point is that the Simile folks — having spent years fighting ontology wars — have now gone AWOL. The new stance is: Everybody gets to name their fields as they prefer, and mashup tools like Potluck can define equivalences among them. All the original source data, and all the merged data, is available in a common format that translates into grist for the engines in the RDF mill. All the data, and all the interactive behavior associated with the data, is cleanly separated from the presentation.

he really likes what he sees. and so do i. this needs to ride on the coattails of someone to get wide exposure

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