FW: A DAML Spatial Ontology

From: John Flynn (jflynn@bbn.com)
Date: 01/24/03

  • Next message: John Flynn: "FW: A DAML Spatial Ontology"
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Ken Forbus [mailto:forbus@cs.northwestern.edu]
    Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 7:26 PM
    To: Jerry Hobbs; daml-all@daml.org; daml-pi@daml.org; mburke@darpa.mil;
    jflynn@bbn.com; mdean@bbn.com; daml@ai.sri.com; nasher@bertie.la.utexas.edu;
    rusty@bbn.com; vinay@ai.sri.com; jennifer@gaia.arc.nasa.gov;
    forbus@northwestern.edu; Mark.Gorniak@rl.af.mil; knoblock@ISI.EDU;
    macgregor@ISI.EDU; russ@ISI.EDU; beth.sundheim@navy.mil
    Subject: RE: A DAML Spatial Ontology
    
    I'd be willing to help.
    
    Re relevant work: Please have a look at
    
    Overview of qualitative spatial reasoning:
    http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/papers/Files/qsrchap.pdf
    Ideas from qualitative mechanics:
    http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/papers/Files/H_Kim_PhD_Thesis.pdf
    Representations and processing motivated by visual psychology:
    http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/papers/files/Ferguson%20and%20Forbus%20Q
    R99%20distribution%20copy.pdf
    Representing and reasoning about trafficability, using a GIS:
    http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/papers/files/Donlon_Forbus_QR99_Distribu
    tion.pdf
    Includes a partial look at some of the spatial reasoning in our
    sketching systems:
    http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/papers/Files/ForbusUsherChapmanIUI2003.p
    df
    
    There's a few more that aren't scanned yet, I'll let folks know when
    they are there.  Hope this is useful.
    
            Ken
    
    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: Jerry Hobbs [mailto:hobbs@ISI.EDU]
    > Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 12:49 PM
    > To: daml-all@daml.org; daml-pi@daml.org; mburke@darpa.mil;
    jflynn@bbn.com;
    > mdean@bbn.com; daml@ai.sri.com; nasher@bertie.la.utexas.edu;
    > rusty@bbn.com; vinay@ai.sri.com; jennifer@gaia.arc.nasa.gov;
    > forbus@northwestern.edu; Mark.Gorniak@rl.af.mil; knoblock@ISI.EDU;
    > macgregor@ISI.EDU; russ@ISI.EDU; beth.sundheim@navy.mil
    > Subject: A DAML Spatial Ontology
    >
    > When I talked about the DAML-Time ontology
    > (http://www.cs.rochester.edu/~ferguson/daml/) at the last DAML
    meeting,
    > Murray Burke said it would be great for some people to get together
    > and do a DAML-Space ontology as well.  This message is an attempt to
    > organize such an effort.
    >
    > The aim of this ontology would not be to drive out any other work on
    > spatial ontologies, but to provide a way for different spatial
    > reasoning engines and spatial resources to communicate with each
    > other, as well as a way for people to mark up the spatial information
    > on their web sites.  The goals of the effort would be to produce an
    > ontology that would
    >
    >     1.  Enable general, though not necessarily efficient, reasoning
    >       about spatial concepts.
    >
    >     2.  Link with more efficient specialized reasoning engines for
    >       spatial reasoning.
    >
    >     3.  Link with the numerous databases that exist containing a
    >       wealth of specific, e.g., geographical, spatial information.
    >
    >     4.  Support convenient query capabilities for spatial
    >       information.
    >
    > The topics we would want to cover include the following (where I've
    > listed the corresponding topics that DAML-Time covers):
    >
    >       Space                           Time
    >         -----                         ----
    >
    >         Topological relations         Topological relations
    >         (e.g., RCC8)                    (e.g., interval algebra)
    >
    >       Dimension                       --
    >
    >       Shape                           --
    >
    >       Length, area and volume         Duration
    >
    >       Latitude, longitude, elevation  Clock and calendar
    >
    >       Political subdivisions          --
    >
    > Please feel free to comment on this list.
    >
    > Much of the work will be focused on geographical knowledge, but the
    > intent is not to restrict ourselves to this domain alone.  Topological
    > spatial relations are important in microbiology, for example.  Other
    > application areas that have been suggested are the geology of
    > earthquakes, NASA application, computer graphics, and virtual reality.
    >
    > Of course to do a thorough spatial ontology is an immense job.  I
    > think we can restrict what we need to do by limiting ourselves to
    > _linking_ with resources, rather than _duplicating_ them.  For
    > example, we would want to be able to interface with a resource on the
    > shapes of geographical regions, but we would not need to encode its
    > internal representations.
    >
    > As with DAML-Time, the aim would be to construct an ontology that
    > accomodates many perspectives on controversial issues rather than
    > forces a particular perspective.
    >
    > Let me know if you would be interested in participating in such an
    > effort, as least as far as tracking the email.  Also suggest any
    > research and applications you think should be taken into account.  It
    > would also be extremely helpful to develop a set of challenge problems
    > of varying levels of difficulty to help drive the development of the
    > ontology.
    >
    > This message is being sent to a rather haphazard set of people, so
    > please feel free to forward it to anyone else you think appropriate.
    >
    > -- Jerry Hobbs
    


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