A geospatial world model for the semantic web

  • Authors:

  • François Bry;Bernhard Lorenz;Hans Jürgen Ohlbach;Mike Rosner

  • Affiliations:

  • Institute for Informatics, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich;Institute for Informatics, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich;Institute for Informatics, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich;Department of Computer Science and AI, University of Malta

  • Venue:
  • PPSWR'05 Proceedings of the Third international conference on Principles and Practice of Semantic Web Reasoning
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

The Semantic Web is an endeavour aiming at enhancing Web data with meta-data and data processing, as well as processing methods specifying the “meaning” of such data and allowing Web-based systems to take advantage of “intelligent” reasoning capabilities. The representation of the meaning of data essentially requires the development of a world model. Ontologies, for example, are logical descriptions of world models. In this paper we investigate what it means to develop a world model for “geospatial” data that can be used for Semantic Web applications. Different aspects are analysed and a proposal for a concrete architecture is developed. The architecture takes into account that geospatial data (road maps etc.) are usually owned by companies and only accessible through their interfaces. The article also argues that, to complement standard, general purpose, logic-based data modelling and reasoning methods, as e.g. offered by RDF and OWL and reasoners for these languages, location reasoning is best tackled using graphs for data modelling and well-established algorithms for reasoning. Hence, the article illustrates, for the practical case of location reasoning for providing guidance, the thesis that, on the Semantic Web, “theory reasoning” is a desirable complement to “standard reasoning”.