Panoramic Words

The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive thesaurus and dictionary that gives you a panoramic approach to words and their relationships to one another. Instead of a regular dictionary-like list of words, it presents information as a word map, in a circle of connections, more akin to the way we think. John Feld takes the virtual verbal tour.

The map of verbal connections this tool opens up is more than an aid in finding the right word; it assists in making appropriate and often unexpected, connections.
When entering a word, you are immediately presented with both synonyms and antonyms. These are connected from word to word either with a straight line (synonym) or with a dotted line (antonym, called ‘type of’). At the end of each line is a coloured dot. Red dots represent noun connections, green dots for verbs, mustard for adjectives and purple for adverbs.
Passing your cursor over the dots brings up a box that explains the connection between the connect words and presents examples of each word in sentences. Clicking on a dot shows each term associated with the dot and rearranges the word map according to which dot is clicked.

Nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs
Definitions of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs are also listed in a row on the side of the screen. When selected, they highlight the appropriate use on the screen. You can hear the pronunciation of key words by clicking on a speaker icon next to the word.
Some words have only a few associations, while others have many. Over 145,000 English words and 115,000 meanings are included. The interface helps to find the precise use of words by showing the semantic relationship with other words and meanings and related concepts. If the words and branches are too close together, you can expand the circle of words, change the font size or simply click and drag on a word to move it into clear space.
The fun begins by clicking on any of the associated words, which brings that word to the centre, and generates a new set of associated words. By subsequently clicking on new words, you build a path, and can develop a set of relationships that take you to new words and phrases.

2D or 3D?
The map of words can be viewed in 2D space as a flat image, or in 3D—that is, a revolving image with words floating to the front and retreating backwards into obscurity. These 3D maps can be spun in any direction and at any speed. It’s just a pity that there is no way to
save them as an animation.The interface allows for a lot of customisation of the words that are found. It is possible to search just for verbs or nouns, change font sizes, scale lines to make them thick or thin, make dots larger or smaller and easily scale the overall size of the map.
This is a great tool for finding inspiration, and it does it with beauty and elegance.
It is a great tool for anyone working with words, as it allows completely free exploration.
The Virtual Thesaurus was designed as a demonstration to show how any data can be presented in a 3D space, but I think this application is a winner. It’s a cool, intuitive way to work with words. It is also fairly addictive.

Price & availability
The Visual Thesaurus is available on both Mac and Windows for US$29. Alternatively, you can purchase online subscriptions for US$19.95 a year or US$2.95 a month.

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Filed under: DG magazine 127