Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
For example, allowing comparing data which represent both channels and
roads. Moreover, the auto-completion method could be improved, for
example by returning to the user concepts' names in a form respecting the
taxonomic structure of the topographic domain ontology. This would allow
the user to better specify which data s/he is interested in.
Information returned to the user come from the specification ontologies,
which are represented in
OWL 2
, the latest version of
OWL
language.
Indeed, these ontologies formalize a large part of databases specifications,
but some expressions like “The attribute '
width
' of the feature class
'
Hydrographic segment
' takes the value '
small
' if this '
river section's width'
lies between 0 and 10 meters” can typically not be directly represented in
OWL
since they are constraints between fillers of two different properties.
As a consequence, it is necessary to follow the evolution of the ontology
web languages in order to continually improve the formalization of the
databases specifications.
The implemented prototype is actually restricted to the hydrographic
theme of two geographic databases from
IGN
. It would be interesting to
extend it to other geographic databases from
IGN
and outside
IGN
in order
to allow users to compare databases issued from more different
conceptualizations and points of view.
Acknowledgement
This work is partly founded by the French Research Agency through the
GeOnto
project ANR-
O7-MDCO-005 on “creation, alignment, comparison and use of geographic ontologies”
(http://geonto.lri.fr/).
References
Abadie N, Mechouche A, Mustière S (2010) OWL-based formalization of geographic databases
specifications, 17th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge
Management, 11-15, Lisbon
Abadie N, Mustière S (2008) Constitution d'une taxonomie géographique à partir des
spécifications de bases de données. Actes de SAGEO, Montpellier
Bruin S, Bregt A, van de Ven M (2001) Assessing fitness for use: the expected value of spatial
data sets. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 15(5):457-471
