OntoInk: Interactive Ontology Visualization, Validation, and Reasoning
Organizations: FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, Germany · Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute AIFB, Germany
Abstract
Ontology documentation, visualization, and validation are usually carried out with separate tools. This split workflow slows down development and makes knowledge transfer harder. We present OntoInk, an open-source MkDocs plugin that brings these activities together. Within a single documentation-as-code pipeline, OntoInk renders interactive ontology diagrams, validates instance data against SHACL shapes, runs OWL,DL reasoning, and supports inline Turtle editing. General-purpose diagram plugins for MkDocs cannot parse RDF, dereference IRIs, overlay SHACL constraints, or run OWL reasoning. Compared with standalone ontology visualization tools, OntoInk embeds interactive and editable diagrams directly into documentation pages. A live demo and source code are available at https://ise-fizkarlsruhe.github.io/ontoink/.
Figures & tables
| Interactive Vis. | SHACL Overlay | OWL Reasoning | Inline Editing | Doc. Integration | Pub.-Ready Export | |
| Protégé Musen (2015) | – | – | ||||
| WebVOWL Lohmann et al. (2015) | – | – | – | – | ||
| WebVOWL Editor Wiens et al. (2018) | – | – | – | |||
| Graffoo Falco et al. (2014) | – | – | – | – | – | |
| OWL2Graffoo Duchateau and Debruyne (2026) | – | – | ||||
| Chowlk Chávez-Feria et al. (2022) | – | – | – | – |