Chromatic Vibration Packet

WikiPede is an ever-evolving project to create an alternative interface or experience to the wonderful Wikipedia. The idea is to browse down the chain of signifiers based on an origin topic, chosen by the user, using only the referenced subtopics. It has gone through many resurrections and revisions.

Tonight I found one of my favorite and more developed loose-ends. Below is an image and a link to the application and source.

WikiPede searches wikipedia.org for your search criteria and grabs the Special:Export, which is an XML document. It takes the tags in the page node and puts the values in a WikiMediaArticle object. A WikiBranch object then engorges itself on the article, stripping all the links from the node like a Panda bear. Links are denoted like this : [[bamboo]]. Then the WikiDraw class reads a WikiBranch object, traverses it (here just one level), and draws the branches and dots. Here the branches are at a radius relative in size to the number of subtopics they contain.

To change your search criteria, click anywhere in the applet to reveal the search box.

Give it a whirl.