Visual Edwards Project

Rob Boss, PhD

Updated 3/22/2025

Welcome!

Welcome to the home of Visual Edwards, where the writings and thoughts of Jonathan Edwards are brought to life through innovative visualizations.

What is Visual Edwards?

The Visual Edwards project creatively visualizes Jonathan Edwards' writings, facilitating exploration, study, and presentation. Initially started to visualize Edwards’ natural typology, the project now spans across all 73 volumes of Edwards’ corpus in Yale’s collection.

Compatible with Mac Apple Silicon and Windows Intel 64 computers using modern web browsers, Visual Edwards approaches America’s Theologian via 3D and 2D network visualizations with adjustable layout and integrated auto-highlighting of the WJEO text.

Program Functionality

This Digital Humanities project is a comprehensive program for text analysis and 3D visualization designed for exploring the writings of Jonathan Edwards. It performs text searches based on specific parameters and displays results through interactive visualizations.

Main Features

User Interface:

• Input Fields: Users can input search terms, context length, max word distance, and other settings.
• Toggle Options: Several checkboxes allow users to toggle features like case sensitivity, exact match, 3D background, dark mode, etc.
• Buttons: Includes options for toggling search directions, resetting the graph, and returning to the input menu.

Search Functionality:

• Text Analysis: The program processes text files to find term matches based on user-defined parameters.
• Export Results: Generates HTML and CSV files with search results.
• Contextual Highlighting: Matches are highlighted in the HTML output, with options for brackets or CSS styles.

File and Folder Management:

• The program allows users to select a folder of text files for processing.
• Remembers the selected folder for convenience.

3D Visualization:

• Graph Rendering: Visualizes nodes and edges representing relationships between found matches in a 3D space.
• Controls: Users can rotate, pan, and zoom the graph using mouse and keyboard interactions.
• Dynamic Display: Nodes are colored, labeled, and can be highlighted via interaction.
• Auto-Rotation: Option for automatic rotation of the 3D graph.

Customizability:

• Dark Mode: Offers dark mode for better accessibility.
• Aesthetic Adjustments: Users can change node colors and toggle edge/label visibility.

Advanced Features:

• Force-Directed Layout: Uses a physics engine to layout nodes based on forces like repulsion and spring tension.
• Annotations: Nodes can display annotations from clipboard text.
• Clipboard Integration: Copies search results and node data to the clipboard.

Technical Details:

• Smooth Transitions: Easing parameters for camera movements ensure smooth transitions.
• File Handling: Utilizes Java libraries for file I/O and regular expressions for text processing.

Output Files:

• HTML Results: Provides interactive search results with statistics, and options to toggle view modes.
• CSV Data: Captures search results in a structured format for further analysis.

This software project combines powerful text processing with engaging visual representations, making it a versatile tool for exploring complex writings and generating insights through visualization.

Endorsements

“Rob Boss’ work on visualizing Edwards’ thought through dimensional traceries is a case in point. This “mapping” or imaging of the mind of Edwards is unique, and uniquely illumines the study of the man and presents new possibilities. “Sight” had both a physiological and a spiritual dimension for Edwards, who studied Newton as well as Milton, but he could hardly have anticipated the realms that visualization has taken on in the postmodern era.”
— Kenneth P. Minkema, Executive Director, Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale University

“The tools of digital humanities allow researchers to identify or represent patterns in literature in ways that would have been prohibitively time-consuming or impossible with tools based in print technologies. Because of the structure of the “Miscellanies” of Jonathan Edwards and the breadth of his corpus, an exhaustive analysis of a theme is difficult. Topical mapping allows researchers to clarify Edwards through his own writings.…This project exemplifies what can be done to enrich theological research with data gathered from projects similar to The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online.”
— Jonathan McCormick, Director of Library Services, Gateway Seminary

“Boss succeeds in translating words and thoughts into images, uncovering many aspects of Edwards’s thoughts that would otherwise remain hidden. This innovative approach initiates a whole new area of research in Jonathan Edwards studies and adds to the recent contributions of Digital Humanities to the study of American letters as such.”
— Michał Choiński, Assistant Professor in the Institute of English Studies, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

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